Christmas a year ago had been a ghastly festival for Stacey, that he had gone through with somehow, his face stiffened into a fixed smile, his voice saying mechanical things, while within him only one emotion had been alive—the fierce, dizzy, dangerous craving to get away, from this, from everything and every one. And it could not have been much gayer for the others. Mr. Carroll had watched his son apprehensively, Jimmy Prout, too, had fallen below his customary debonair form, and even Julie, who, though more intelligent than people gave her credit for being, was not subtle, had a grave anxious air. Also the thought of Phil’s recent death and of Catherine grieving in that lonely squalid house hung over all of them. Only Junior had been quite himself. He had in truth been the life of the party.

Christmas this year was very different—Christmas Eve, especially. There was not quite the old exuberance; that could never return in this grayer sadder world,—or perhaps it was merely that Julie and Stacey and Jimmie were grown-up now. But there was a genial friendly warmth in the atmosphere. And then there were three children this year. They chattered and laughed and stamped impatiently in the long hall that led from the library to the big drawing-room where the tree was being prepared, and when at last the drawing-room doors were thrown open and the brilliant tree was displayed all three gave a howl of joy that would have satisfied even Dickens.

Mr. Carroll was extraordinarily good on such occasions. He delivered the presents—not too slowly, not too rapidly—from the great pile about the base of the tree, with a pleasant easy grace and sometimes a little speech. His own gifts he laid aside in a corner, to open later. They made an imposing heap, too; for many people outside of the family delighted to remember Mr. Carroll. Women, especially. He had great success with women and remained quite unspoiled by it, accepting it with apparent unconsciousness, or as a matter of course, as an aristocrat accepts his position. Old wives of old friends, young wives of friends’ sons, daughters of friends, spinsters to whom he had been kind,—he stirred all of them to liking. Perhaps it was Mr. Carroll’s good looks or his grace of manner or his goodness of heart or his youthful spirit or all of them together—Stacey did not know; but he recognized his father’s fascination and looked with affectionate amusement at the growing pile of prettily wrapped gifts. But it did not occur to Stacey that he himself had inherited that attractiveness to women; for he had inherited the unconsciousness of it along with the trait.

The three boys were making a tremendous racket, Julie was flushed and talkative, Jimmy Prout, a colored paper cap on his good-looking head, was lolling easily in his chair and drawing discordant wails from a toy accordion. Only Catherine seemed subdued. She sat near Julie, whom she liked warmly, and smiled and spoke quietly at times, but there was a faint tremulousness about her lips and a sensitiveness, as to pain, in the look of her eyes, that Stacey, who caught quickly the slightest change in Catherine, perceived clearly. Perhaps it was her shyness in all this confusion. Stacey did not know. She had not seemed quite herself of late.

The party broke up finally. Julie took her husband and her delirious son home, and Mr. Carroll and Stacey were left with Catherine and her two boys. Jackie, exhausted with happiness, sat on his mother’s lap and played sleepily with a mechanical mouse; Carter leaned against Stacey’s knee; Mr. Carroll sat, relaxed, in a chair near his gifts, which he showed no eagerness to open. The tree was lifeless, all its little colored candles extinguished, and the floor was strewn with ribbon and tissue-paper. The room held the quiet sadness that broods over a festival that is finished.

Catherine spoke first, setting Jackie on his feet and rising. “Thank you, Mr. Carroll, for everything,” she murmured. “I cannot—express how good you have been. And you, Stacey.”

The men had risen, too. “Why, my dear girl,” Mr. Carroll returned, “you’ve given us far more happiness than we you.”

She shook her head. “I must take the boys up now,” she said. “I’ve promised, as it’s Christmas Eve, to stay with them just for once while they undress.”

“You’ll come back, Catherine?” Stacey asked.

“Yes,” she replied, without looking at him, “I’ll come back.”

“Well, sir,” said Stacey gaily, when he was left with his father, “aren’t you going to open all those bundles?”

“Presently! Presently!” Mr. Carroll replied. “I’ll carry them up to my study.”

“Oh, I say!” Stacey protested, “I want to see what you’ve got.”

His father shook his head. “There’s something better than that waiting for us,” he remarked, with a smile. “In the dining-room. A bottle of Pol Roger and some sandwiches and so forth. Come along!”

“Well, rather!” Stacey exclaimed. “What a happy thought! I’m starved, too,—to say nothing of my thirst. You never eat anything at dinner in the excitement of this sort of thing.”

He wondered a bit that his father had not suggested their waiting for Catherine, then understood suddenly that this was a handsome tribute to himself, an effort to express wordlessly that they two, father and son, were close friends who needed no one else to help them achieve intimacy. But the first thing Mr. Carroll did was to prepare carefully and set aside a plate of good things to eat. “For Catherine,” he explained. Then, with a boyish smile at Stacey, he took the bottle from the cooler, uncorked it, and poured the hissing pale-gold wine into the delicate flaring glasses.

“Aren’t you ashamed to violate the laws of your country in this way?” asked Stacey.

“I’m not doing that,” Mr. Carroll returned. “When it comes to whiskey I do some considerable violating, but this champagne has been in my cellar for years. To your health, son!”

“To yours, sir!” Stacey replied cordially. They touched glasses and drank.

They talked, like the good friends they were, in an easy desultory way while they sipped the wine and ate a little. But all at once Mr. Carroll became silent, then suddenly looked across at his son.

“Stacey,” he said, “don’t be a fool!”

It was an odd speech, but the oddest thing about it was the tone, which was not rough like the words, but pleading, almost cajoling. Mr. Carroll might have been saying: “Do me a favor, won’t you?”

Stacey grinned. “Try not to,” he said. “Explain.”

But his father was filling Stacey’s glass, and, when he had finished doing this, took more time than seemed necessary to replace the bottle in the cooler and adjust the napkin about its neck. And even then he did not reply at once.

“Well,” he said at last, with an obvious effort, and not looking at his son, “I mean to say—why the devil don’t you ask Catherine to marry you?”

Stacey, who had lifted his glass, started so that some of the yellow liquid spilled over upon the table-cloth. He leaned back in his chair, amazed and shocked.

“Why, sir, I—” he stammered, then broke off helplessly.

“Where will you find any one who’s shown herself as good and sweet and courageous?” Mr. Carroll went on, almost belligerently, as though Catherine’s merits were in question.

“Nowhere,” Stacey replied soberly. It was abhorrent to him to see his deepest emotion, which he hardly admitted even to himself, spilled over the table, like the wine.

“Well, then?”

“There is—Phil,” Stacey muttered.

“Phil is dead,” Mr. Carroll answered gravely. “We have all felt his loss. He was a noble character. And you were his closest friend—”

“Just for that—”

“Just for that he would trust Catherine to you gladly. It would not be he to stand between you.”

“No,” Stacey said in a stifled voice, “I suppose not. It is not Phil, but— Please, sir!” he begged.

His father nodded. “Pretty cheeky of me, I admit, son,” he said gruffly. “Wouldn’t blame you if you’d grown angry, but you understand how I mean it—er—”

“That’s all right, dad. I know,” Stacey replied quickly.

They finished their supper in an awkward silence.

“Well,” said Mr. Carroll, rising, “I suppose I’d better get those presents of mine and open them. There’ll be a lot of notes to write in reply.”

Stacey followed him back to the littered drawing-room, mechanically almost, because he did not know what else to do. “Want any help, sir?” he asked.

“No, thanks,” said his father, his arms full of bundles. “I’ll be down again after a while.” And he went out.

Stacey, left alone, stared after him, then walked restlessly down the hall to the library. It was painful to him that his father should have divined his feelings. But this was not the worst. The worst was that, if his father had understood him, so, assuredly, had Catherine. This grieved Stacey deeply. He had been so careful, he thought; he had never meant to let her see what he felt for her. But she did know. Of course she knew! How stupid he had been! No wonder he found her changed! He could see it all now. His father, it seemed, believed that Catherine could care for Stacey as he for her; but Stacey knew better. She was shocked and saddened by her discovery, uncertain what to do—whether to go away or not, generously anxious not to give pain, all her peace of mind gone. Poor Catherine! Stacey was furious with himself. But this did no good—not the least bit. He shook off his anger impatiently. What was to be done about it? That was the point. How without putting things into words—which always made them worse—was he to let Catherine know that she could count on him, that he would be merely the friend she wanted him to be? He was puzzling over it when she entered the room.

She looked startled when she saw that he was there alone, and paused just inside the door as though half inclined to retreat. It hurt Stacey keenly that she should be afraid of him—and with reason. He had risen and stood facing her, but across the room from her.

“Won’t you—come in?” he asked. “Or would you rather go somewhere else—the dining-room? There’s luncheon ready for you in there.”

She shook her head. “No,” she answered, “and I’m not hungry.” But she did not come farther into the room, and, though she smiled waveringly, Stacey saw the expression of pain—or perhaps fear—in her eyes.

“Catherine,” he began in a low voice, after a moment, “why is it so hard—and dangerous—to be frank?”

“Ought it to be either?” she replied gently. She looked at him steadily as she spoke, but the expression on her face was odd and troubled. There was compassion in it, though; he felt that strongly. Of course! A generous emotion would always be dominant in Catherine.

He came a little nearer to her. “Catherine,” he said, “I have not meant ever to—” then broke off. It was worse to say things than to leave them unspoken, and she would understand them anyway. He tried desperately to call the whole subject off. “Oh,” he remarked, with a positively sepulchral gaiety, “Christmas is too emotional! We’re good friends, aren’t we? and that’s all that matters.”

But she continued to gaze at him in that same odd manner. The very pose of her body made her seem like a creature at bay.

And suddenly Stacey’s thoughts were swept away like so much rubbish by a wave of sure emotion. He took a step toward Catherine, stretching out his hands impulsively, and all at once she was in his arms, trembling and weeping, her lips raised to his.

“Ah, Stacey, didn’t you know I loved you?” she murmured presently. “Your father knew.”

“Wh-when?”

“Since the evening you quarreled.”

“Oh,” Stacey cried, “was it—for love that you defended me?”

“You—might call it that.”

She drew a little away from him now and made him sit down beside her on the divan.

“I think,” she said gently, holding his hand against her cheek, “that men can hardly ever think in facts; they must think in patterns; and anything that will not fit into a pattern they find wrong. But I want to tell you the truth. I have always loved you, Stacey, always! It was not disloyalty. I am sure Phil knew. I loved you and him. It was different. I can’t make you understand.”

Stacey, very shaken and confused, and not understanding anything save (humbly) that this was giving on a scale beyond what was credible, drew her to him and kissed her hot face.

“Oh, Stacey,” she murmured, “I feel so—immodest!”

“Aha!” he interrupted, laughing unsteadily, “now who’s thinking not like an individual but like the whole female sex?” And at this she, too, laughed a little.

They sat there, close together, scarcely speaking. But it came over Stacey in a rush that in his love for Catherine there was a touch of what he had felt for Marian and something more—far more! Truth, fact. It was complete. This was reality. There was nothing left out.

“Catherine,” he cried, “you are not only a grown woman; you are a little girl, too. And so I’m not afraid of you any longer—I always was, a little, you know. Now I’m not.”

“That’s odd,” she said shyly, “because I—have also been afraid of you, a little.”

“But really? On account of my temper, I suppose. You’re right. I’ve a rotten temper,” he said remorsefully.

She smiled. “No, not on account of your temper. I think,” she explained, grave now, “it was the—the serenity you have achieved, Stacey dear.”

He drew away to stare at her, but before he could speak the door of the room opened and Mr. Carroll entered, then paused abruptly.

Catherine saw him first and hurried to his side, clasping his hand in both of hers and laying her head against his shoulder.

Mr. Carroll reached out his other hand to grasp Stacey’s and gazed at his son with shining eyes.

“Oh, Mr. Carroll, do you mind?” Catherine cried softly.

“Mind, my dear!” he replied. “Isn’t it exactly what I’ve hoped for?” And he bent over and kissed her cheek, then made her sit down beside him on the divan, while Stacey stood a little way off, looking at them.

“Er—where are you thinking of living?” Mr. Carroll asked presently in a carefully matter-of-fact voice, while he slowly clipped off the end of a cigar.

Stacey flashed a swift questioning glance at Catherine. “Why,” he remarked then deliberately, “what with the scarcity of houses and all, we were rather thinking of staying on here.”

“Well,” said Mr. Carroll, “if you will, you will, I suppose.” But he had paused to light his cigar before speaking, and it had taken him rather longer than usual.

THE END.