Read the book: «The House of Armour», page 6

When Camperdown at Stargarde’s request explained what had happened, her lovely face became troubled and she looked as if she were going to cry.

“Zeb,” she said with trembling lips, “you must go away. I cannot have you here any longer if you do such things.”

The child sprang to her. “Don’t ye, don’t ye do that. I’ll slick up. Gimme a lickin’, only let me stay. I’ll not look at him—the devil!” with a furious glance at Camperdown. “I’ll turn round face to the wall, only, only don’t send me out in the cold.”

What could Stargarde do? Pardon, pardon, always pardon, that was the secret of her marvelous hold on the members of her enormous family. She drew up the little footstool to a corner, placed the child on it, and shaking her head at Dr. Camperdown, sat down opposite him. “Take people for what they are—not for what they ought to be,” she said to him in German.

“You are a good woman, Stargarde,” he returned softly in the same language. “I can give you no higher praise. And I have had a good dinner,” he continued, drawing back from the table. “What are you going to do with those dishes? Mayn’t I help you wash them?”

“No, thank you. Zeb will assist me when you have gone.”

He smiled at her hint to withdraw, and placing the rocking-chair by the fire for her, said wistfully: “Do you really wish me to go?”

“Well, you may stay for half an hour longer,” she replied, as indulgent with him as she was with the child.

As soon as the words left her lips, he ensconced himself comfortably in the arm-chair, and gazing into the fire listened dreamily to the low-murmured sentences Stargarde was addressing to the child, who had crept into her arms begging to be rocked.

“I wish I could smoke,” he said presently; “I think you don’t object to the smell of tobacco, Stargarde?”

“No,” she said quietly, “not the smell of it.”

“But the waste, the hurtfulness of the habit, eh?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take the responsibility of that, if you let me have one pipe, Stargarde, only one.”

“One then let it be,” she replied.

With eyes fixed on her, he felt for his tobacco pouch and pipe, which he blindly filled, only looking at it when the time for lighting came. Then in a state of utter beatification he leaned back, smoking quietly and listening to her clear voice, as she swung slowly to and fro, talking to the child.

After a time Zeb fell asleep and Stargarde’s voice died away.

Camperdown rose slowly to his feet. He knew that it was time for him to be gone and that it was better for him to call attention to it himself than to wait for an ignominious dismissal as soon as Stargarde should come out of the reverie into which she had fallen.

“Good-bye,” he said in startling fashion. “Take notice that I’m going of my own accord for once, and don’t put me out any more. I’m trying to deserve my good fortune, you see.”

“Good-night, Brian,” she said gently.

He seized his cap and coat, flashed her a look of inexpressible affection from his deep-set eyes, and was gone.

CHAPTER XI
MRS. MACARTNEY GETS A FRIGHT

Vivienne and Judy were in their sitting room reading by the light of a lamp on the table between them when the younger girl suddenly pricked up her ears.

“There’s a puffing, panting sound on the staircase,” she said, “as if a steam-tug were approaching. It must be your Irish friend. I’ll decamp, for I don’t want to see her.” She picked up her crutch and was about to flee to her bedroom when she was arrested by a succession of squeals.

“Holy powers save us,” moaned Mrs. Macartney bursting into the room. “There’s something odd about this house when the devil lives in the top story of it.”

“Thank you,” said Judy smartly; “perhaps you don’t know that these are my apartments.”

Mrs. Macartney did not hear her. Holding Vivienne’s hands, and half laughing, half crying, she was rocking herself to and fro.

“He had on a nightcap and a woman’s gown, and he goggled at me from an open door; and, me dear, his face was like a coal–”

“It’s Mammy Juniper that you’ve seen, dear Mrs. Macartney,” exclaimed Vivienne.

“And who is Mammy Juniper?” inquired her visitor, stopping short to stare at her.

“She’s an old family servant; sit down here and I’ll tell you about her.”

“Ah me; ah me,” wailed the Irish lady dropping on a sofa; “we don’t have people of her color in my peaceful home. Sure, I thought me last hour had come.”

“She is very black,” said Vivienne gravely; “and she despises the other colored people here. Mammy is a Maroon. Have you ever heard of that race?”

“Never, me dear; I didn’t want to.”

“They were a fierce and lawless people living in Jamaica,” said Vivienne; “and they fought the English and would not submit till they heard that they were to be hunted with dogs. Then they gave in and were transported here. They disliked Nova Scotia because they said there were no yams nor cocoanuts and bananas growing here, and no wild hogs to hunt; and the men couldn’t have as many wives as they chose, nor have cock-fighting; so the government sent them all to Africa; all but the parents of Mammy Juniper, and when they died she became a servant in this family.”

“A fearsome body for a servant,” said her hearer; “aren’t you terrified of her, me dear?”

“No,” said Vivienne; “she is more afraid of me than I am of her. I am sorry for her.”

“Don’t talk about her, me child,” said Mrs. Macartney with a shudder. “Talk about yourself. Aren’t you shamming ill with that rosy face?”

“I’m not ill,” said Vivienne lightly. “This is only a feverish cold; but Dr. Camperdown won’t let me go downstairs.”

“I was determined to see you,” said Mrs. Macartney, pulling Vivienne beside her to the sofa. “I thickened the air with hints that I’d like to come up, but Mrs. Colonibel tried to frighten me with tales of the badness of your cold.”

“She doesn’t like me to have callers up here, for some reason,” said Vivienne.

“She likes to be contrary, me dear. ’Tis the breath of life to her, and maybe she’s jealous of your handsome room”—looking admiringly about her—"which is the most elegant of the house. Your whites and golds don’t slap me in the face like the colors downstairs. That’s the lady of the mansion’s good pleasure, I suppose. Ah, but she is a fine woman!"

The inimitable toss of her head as she pronounced this praise of Mrs. Colonibel and the waggish roll of her eyes to the ceiling made Vivienne press her handkerchief to her lips to keep from laughter that she feared might reach Judy’s ears.

“I wish you could have seen her ladyship yesterday when she came to invite us to this dinner, me dear,” said Mrs. Macartney with a twisting of her mouth. “The boy at the hotel brought up her card—Mrs. Colonibel. ‘That’s the Lady Proudface,’ said I, and I went to the drawing room; and there she stood, and rushed at me like this–” and Mrs. Macartney rising from the sofa charged heavily across the room at an unoffending table which staggered on its legs at her onset.

Vivienne half started from her seat then fell back again laughing spasmodically. “Me dear,” said Mrs. Macartney looking over her shoulder at her, “she thought to make up by the warmth of her second greeting for the coldness of her first. She said she wanted us all to come and dine en famille, to celebrate the engagement, so I thought I’d tease her and talk French too; so I said, ‘Wouldn’t we be de trop? and you mustn’t suppose we belonged to the élite of the world, for we were plain people and didn’t care a rap for the opinion of the beau monde.’ You should have seen her face! And then I took pity on her and said we’d come. And come we did; and I’d give a kingdom if you could see Patrick and Geoffrey. They’re sitting beside Mrs. Colonibel, bowing and smirking at everything she says, and she’s thinking she’s mighty entertaining, and when we get home they’ll both growl and say they were bored to death, and why didn’t I tell them you weren’t to be present. Me dear, I didn’t dare to,” in a stage whisper, and looking over her shoulder. “They’d never have come.”

“Is Mrs. Colonibel not at all embarrassed with you?” said Vivienne. “She was not polite to you the other day, though of course it was on my account, not on yours.”

“Embarrassed, did you say, me dear?” replied Mrs. Macartney gayly. “Faith, there’s no such word in society. You must keep a bold front, whatever you do, or you’ll get the gossips after you. Dip your tongue in honey or gall, whichever you like, and hold your head high, and there’s no such thing as quailing before the face of mortal man or woman. Drop your head on your breast and go through the world, and you’ll have the fingers pointed at you. Me Lady Proudface is the woman to get on. If you’d seen the way she took the news of your engagement you’d have fallen at her feet in admiration.”

“She suppressed her disapproval,” said Vivienne.

“Disapproval, me child. ’Twas like salt to her eyeballs; but she never winked. Hasn’t she said anything to you about it?”

“No; we rarely have any conversations.”

“Ah, she’d have but a limited supply of compliments left after her flowery words to me. By the way, did you get the grand bouquet that Geoffrey sent to you?”

“Yes; it is over there by the window.”

“He’s desolated not to see you, as the French people say; but hist, me dear, there’s some one at the door. Maybe it’s her ladyship. I’ll go into this adjacent room.”

“No, no; stay here,” exclaimed Vivienne with an apprehensive glance at the narrow doorway leading to her sleeping apartment. “It does not matter who comes.”

“It’s only I,” said a meek voice, and Dr. Camperdown’s sandy head appeared, shortly followed by the rest of his body.

Mrs. Macartney, not heeding Vivienne’s advice, had tried to enter the next room, and had become firmly wedged in the doorway. Dr. Camperdown was obliged to go to her assistance, and when he succeeded in releasing her she looked at him with such a variety of amusing expressions chasing themselves over her face that he grinned broadly and turned away.

“Who is this gentleman?” said Mrs. Macartney at last breathlessly, with gratitude, and yet with a certain repugnance to the physician on account of his ugly looks.

Vivienne performed the necessary introduction, and Mrs. Macartney ejaculated, “Ah, your doctor. Perhaps,” jocularly, “I may offer myself to him as a patient.” Then as Dr. Camperdown took Vivienne’s wrist in his hand she bent over him with an interested air and said, “It’s me flesh, doctor. I don’t know what to do about it. The heavens seem to rain it down upon me—flake upon flake, layer upon layer. I’ve been rubbed and tubbed, and grilled and stewed, and done Banting, and taken Anti-fats, and yet it goes on increasing. Every morning there’s more of it, and every evening it grows upon me. I have to swing and tumble and surge about me bed to get impetus enough to roll out; it’s awful, doctor!”

Vivienne listened to her in some surprise, for up to this she had not imagined that Mrs. Macartney felt the slightest uneasiness in regard to her encumbrance of flesh. But there was real anxiety in her tones now, and Vivienne listened with interest for the doctor’s reply.

“What do you eat?” he said abruptly, and with a swift glance at her smooth, fair expanse of cheek and chin.

“Three fairish meals a day,” she said, “and a supper at night.”

“How much do you walk?”

“Sure, I never walk at all if I can get a carriage.”

He laughed shortly, and said nothing.

“What do you think about it, doctor—is it a dangerous case?” said Mrs. Macartney, twisting her head so that she could look at his face as he bent over his work. Vivienne saw that she was immensely impressed by his oracular manner of delivering himself.

“Do you want me to prescribe for you?” he asked, straightening himself with a suddenness that made his prospective patient start nervously.

“Ah, yes, doctor, please,” she said.

“Begin then by dropping the supper, avoid fats, sweets, anything starchy. Walk till you are ready to drop; heart’s all right is it?”

“Ah, yes,” pathetically, and with a flicker of her customary waggishness, “my heart’s always been my strong point, doctor.”

“Report to me at my office,” he went on; “come in a week.”

She shuffled to her feet, her face considerably brighter. “You’ve laid me under an obligation, doctor. If you’ll make me a shadow smaller, I’ll pray for the peace of your soul. And now I must go, me dear,” she said, looking at Vivienne, “or I’ll be missed from the drawing room. I crept away you know.”

Vivienne smiled. Mrs. Colonibel had probably watched her climbing the staircase.

“I must go too,” said Dr. Camperdown, rising as Mrs. Macartney left the room. “You’ll be all right in a day or two, Miss Delavigne. Mind, we’re to be friends.”

Vivienne looked up gratefully into his sharp gray eyes. “You are very good to come and see me.”

“Armour asked me to,” he said shortly.

“Judy told him that I was ill,” said Vivienne. “I scolded her a little, because I did not think I really needed a doctor.”

“You are a proud little thing,” he remarked abruptly.

Vivienne’s black eyes sought his face in some surprise.

“You can’t get on in this world without help,” he continued. “Be kind to other people and let others be kind to you. How do you and Mrs. Colonibel agree?”

“Passably.”

“Don’t give in to her too much,” he said. “A snub does some people more good than a sermon. Good-night,” and he disappeared abruptly.

CHAPTER XII
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

Vivienne and Judy were having afternoon tea in their room, when the lame girl, who was amusing herself by twirling round and round on the piano stool while she ate her bread and butter, burst into a cackling laugh. “Oh, Vivienne, mamma said such a hateful thing about you—so hateful that I must tell you.”

Vivienne laid her head on her chair back and calmly looked at her.

“She said,” went on Judy with a chuckle, “she said, ‘Throw a handkerchief over her head and you will see the peasant.’”

Vivienne’s eyes glittered as they went back to the fire, and Judy continued, “It was such a detestable thing to say, because she knows that you are more like a princess than a peasant. Fancy comparing you to one of the Frenchwomen that one sees down in the market.”

Vivienne made no reply to her, and Judy went on talking and grumbling to herself until she heard footsteps in the hall outside.

“Who is that coming up here?” she said, peering through the half-open door. “As I am a miserable gossip, it’s Stargarde at last, the mysterious Stargarde, about whom your serene highness is so curious.”

Vivienne rose and gazed straight before her in polite fascination. Mr. Armour stood in the doorway, and behind him was a magnificently developed woman who might be any age between twenty-five and thirty. She held her cap in her hand, and the little curls in her masses of golden hair shone round about her head like an aureole. A mantle muffled the upper part of her figure, but Vivienne caught a glimpse of a neck like marble and exquisitely molded hands.

The girl as she stood criticising her visitor did not know that there was anything wistful in her attitude, she had not the remotest idea of bidding for sympathy; therefore it was with the utmost surprise that she saw Stargarde’s arms outstretched, and the mantle spreading out like a cloud and descending upon her.

“Poor little girl—shut up in the house this lovely weather,” and other compassionate sentences she heard as she went into the cloud and was enveloped by it.

When she emerged, shaking her head and putting up her hands to her coils of black hair to feel that they were not disarranged, Stargarde was smiling at her.

“Did I startle you? Forgive me, I was too demonstrative; but do you know, I fell in love with you before I saw you?”

“Did you?” responded Vivienne, then turning to Mr. Armour, who was loitering about the door as if uncertain whether to come in or not, she invited him to sit down.

“Is your cold any better?” he asked stiffly as he came in.

“Yes, thank you,” she replied. “Dr. Camperdown is driving it away.”

“Stanton,” exclaimed Vivienne’s beautiful visitor, flashing a smile at him, “why don’t you introduce me?”

“I thought it scarcely necessary,” he said, his glance brightening as he turned from Vivienne to her, “after the warmth of your greeting. Yet, if you wish it—this, Miss Delavigne, is our friend Miss Stargarde Turner–”

“Of Rockland Street,” she added gravely.

Vivienne tried to hide her astonishment. This woman looked like an aristocrat. Could it be that she lived in one of the worst streets of the city?

Stargarde smiled as if reading her thoughts. “It isn’t so bad as you think,” she said consolingly. “Wait till you see it.” Then she turned to reply to a sharply interjected question by Judy.

While her attention was distracted from her, Vivienne’s glance wandered in quiet appreciation over the classic profile and statuesque figure of her guest as she sat slightly bent forward with hands clasped over her knees, her loose draperies encircling her and making her look like one of the Greek statues, rows and rows of which the girl had seen in foreign art galleries.

Who was she? What was she? And how did it happen that she had the extraordinary strength of mind to dress and comport herself so differently from the ordinary woman of the world? There was about her also a radiance that she had never before seen in the face of any human being. She did not understand then as she did later on that it was the spirit of love that glorified Stargarde Turner’s face. Her great heart beat only for others. She was so permeated and suffused with a sweet charity toward all men that it shone constantly out of every line of her beautiful countenance.

Vivienne’s eyes went from Stargarde to Mr. Armour. He had a wonderful amount of self-control, yet he could not hide the fact that he admired this charming woman, that he listened intently to every word that fell from her lips.

“I am glad that there is some one he is interested in,” thought Vivienne. “Usually he seems like a man of stone, not of flesh and blood.”

It occurred to her that he had brought Miss Turner up to her room that he might have a chance to listen, without interruption, to the clear, sweet tones of her voice. She imagined that he was in love with her and that his family threw obstacles in the way of their meeting. In this she made a mistake as she soon found out. Stanton Armour was at liberty to pay Miss Turner all the attention he chose, and the whole family welcomed her as an honored guest.

“You and I are going to be friends,” said Stargarde turning to her suddenly. “I feel it.”

“I hope so,” murmured Vivienne.

“Will you have some tea, Israelitess without guile?” asked Judy abruptly flinging an arm over Stargarde’s shoulder.

“Yes, dear,” and Stargarde turned her face toward her. “Why don’t you come to see me?”

“Oh, you worry me with your goodness and perfections,” was the impatient retort. “You’re too faultless for ordinary purposes. I get on better with that young lady there, who is good but human.”

“Have you found some faults in Miss Delavigne already?” asked Stargarde gleefully.

“Yes, plenty of them,” said Judy reaching down to the hearth for the teapot.

“What are they?” asked Mr. Armour soberly.

“I haven’t time to tell you all now,” said Judy. “Come up some day when I’m alone and I’ll go over them. You needn’t smile, Vivienne, I will. What have you been doing with yourself lately, Stargarde? We haven’t seen you for an age.”

“I’ve been in the country finding homes for some of my children.”

“This young person hasn’t the good fortune to be married,” said Judy to Vivienne; “and by children she means orphans and starvelings that she amuses herself by picking out of gutters.”

“I hope that you will be interested in my work,” said Stargarde enthusiastically to Vivienne.

“No, she won’t,” said Judy. “That sort of thing isn’t in her line.”

“Judy,” said Mr. Armour, “it seems to me that you are monopolizing the conversation. Suppose you come over to this window seat and talk to me for a while?”

She followed him obediently, and after they were seated burst out with a brisk, “Thank heaven for family privileges! You wouldn’t have dared say that to a stranger.”

“No,” he said, “I don’t suppose I would.”

“You’re pretty plain-spoken though with everybody,” said Judy critically; “that is, when you want your own way. When you don’t you let people alone. Why are you in such a good temper to-day? Have you been making some money?”

“A little.”

“That’s all you care for, isn’t it?” pursued the girl.

“What do you mean?” he asked, a slight cloud on his face.

“Money is your god,” she said coolly.

He made no reply to her and she went on, “What a pity that you have never married like other men. You’re almost forty, aren’t you?”

“Almost.”

“Just Brian Camperdown’s age; only there is this difference between you, he would get married if he could, and you could if you would. I know some one that would have made a nice, proud wife for you.”

“Judy,” he exclaimed, holding himself a little straighter than he usually did, “what are you talking about?”

“Something that you might have done if you had been as sensible as some people.”

“You are impertinent,” he said angrily.

“This is a long room, and we are some distance from the fireplace,” said Judy in velvet tones, “yet if you raise your voice our two darlings yonder will hear what you are saying.”

Mr. Armour gave her an annoyed glance.

“It isn’t worth your while to quarrel with me,” said Judy smoothly, “the only person in the house that can get on with you. And what have I done? Merely hinted that a charming girl of twenty-one would have done a pretty thing to sacrifice herself to an old bachelor of forty. You ought to feel flattered.”

“I don’t,” he returned sullenly.

“No; because you are a—a—because you are foolish. You ought to feel willing to pay six thousand dollars a year to some one who would make you laugh.”

“What has that to do with Miss Delavigne?” he said.

“Why she amuses you—can’t you see it?—you, a regular grum-growdy of a man, with care sitting forever on your brow.”

“Judy,” he said, “your chatter wearies me.”

“I daresay,” she replied; “it shows you ought to have more of it. You’ll probably go mad some day from business worries.”

Mr. Armour picked up a book that he found on the window seat and began to read it, while Judy turned her back on him and stared out at the peaceful waters of the Arm.

Stargarde was looking earnestly into Vivienne’s face. “You dear child! if I had known you were ill I would have come to you sooner.”

“I have not suffered extremely,” said Vivienne gratefully, yet with dignity.

Stargarde shook her head gently. “Do you care to tell me how you get on with Mrs. Colonibel?”

“We rarely come in contact,” said Vivienne; “we have nothing in common.”

“You do not like her,” said Stargarde sadly; “I know you do not; yet have patience with her, my child. There is a woman who has lived half her life and has not learned its lesson yet. She cannot bear to be contra—opposed; she will have her own way.”

Some hidden emotion caused Stargarde’s face to contract painfully, and Vivienne seeing it said generously, “Let us make some excuse for her. She has reigned here for some years, has she not?”

“Yes; ever since her husband died.”

“And she is jealous of all interference?”

“Yes; and she looks upon you as a usurper. Be as patient as you can with her, dear child, for she thinks that Stanton’s object in bringing you here is to make you mistress over her head.”

“Do you mean that I should become the housekeeper here?”

“Yes; I do.”

Vivienne started. “Oh, I am only here for a short time; I could not think of remaining.” Stargarde looked at her affectionately and with some curiosity, and seeing this the girl went on hastily, “Mrs. Colonibel’s husband is dead, is he not?”

“Yes; he was much older than she was.”

“And her stay here depends upon her cousin, Mr. Armour?”

“Yes; he gives her a handsome salary.”

“It is rather surprising then that she does not try to please him in every respect.”

Stargarde’s eyes lighted up with brilliant indignation. “You bring me to one of my hobbies,” she exclaimed. “I think that if there is one class of people on whom the wrath of God rests more heavily than on others, it is on the good Christian people who, wrapped around in their own virtues, bring up their children in an atmosphere of pagan idolatry. In not one single particle is the child taught to control itself. The very moon and stars would be plucked from the sky if the parent had the power to gratify the child in that way. Nothing, nothing is denied it. And what happens? The parent dies, the child with its shameless disregard of the rights of others is let loose in the world. With what disastrous results we see in the case of Flora Colonibel. Oh, pity her, pity her, my child,” and Stargarde gazed imploringly at Vivienne, her blue eyes dimmed with tears.

Vivienne witnessed Stargarde’s emotion with a kind of awe, and by a gentle glance essayed to comfort her. The woman smiled through her tears, held up her golden head bravely, like a child that has accomplished its season of mourning and is willing to be cheerful, and said steadily: “I rarely discuss Flora—it is too painful a subject—but you are gentle and good; I wish to enlist your sympathies in her favor. You understand?”

“I will try to like her,” said Vivienne with great simplicity, “for your sake.”

“Dear child,” murmured Stargarde, “to do something for others is the way to forget one’s own trouble.”

Vivienne assented to this remark by a smile, and Stargarde fixing her eyes on the fire fell into a brown study. After a time she turned her head with one of her swift, graceful movements, and reading Vivienne’s thoughts with a readiness that rather disconcerted her, said: “You wish to know something about me, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said the girl frankly.

“Good, as Dr. Camperdown says,” replied Stargarde. “I will tell you all that I can. First, I spent the first twelve years of my life as the eldest daughter of a poor parson and his wife. What do you think of that?”

“It is easy to imagine that your descent might be clerical,” said Vivienne innocently.

Stargarde laughed at this with such suppressed amusement that Vivienne knew she must have some arrière pensée. “They were not my real parents,” said her new friend at last.

“Indeed,” said Vivienne, measuring her with a glance so pitying that Stargarde hastened to say, “What does it matter? They loved me better I think for being a waif. The Lord knows all about it, so it is all right. You want to know who my parents are, don’t you?”

“Yes; but do not tell me unless you care to do so.”

“I can’t tell you, child,” said Stargarde, gently pinching her cheek. “I will not say that I do not know; I will simply say that I prefer not to tell anything I may know. Would it make any difference to you if I were to tell you that my father had been—well, say a public executioner?”

“I do not know; I cannot tell,” said Vivienne in bewilderment. “I could never imagine that you would spring from such a source as that.”

“Suppose I did; you would not punish the child for the father’s dreadful calling, would you?”

“Most persons would.”

“Yes, they would,” said Stargarde. “We punish the children for the sins of the fathers, and we are always pointing our fingers at our neighbors and saying, ‘I am better than thou,’ as regards lineage. And yet, in the beginning we were all alike.

 
‘When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?’”
 

“That was years ago,” said Vivienne in amusement; “blood trickling through the veins of generations has become blue.”

“My dear, we go up and down. The aristocrats of to-day are the paupers of to-morrow, except in rare instances. I do not think any the more of you for a possible existence in your veins of a diluted drop of the blood royal of France. I can understand your sentiment in regard to it, if you say, ‘I must never commit a mean action because I come of a line of distinguished ancestry’; though I think a better sentiment is, ‘Here I stand as noble in the sight of God as any creature of earth; I owe it to him and to myself to keep my record clean.’”

An alarming suspicion crept into Vivienne’s mind. “Are you an anarchist?” she asked anxiously.

“Oh, no, no,” laughed Stargarde; “a socialist if you will, in the broad sense of the term, a Christian socialist; but an anarchist never.”

“Are you a loyal subject to the Queen?”

Stargarde bent her beautiful head. “I am, God bless her! Not loyalty alone do I give her, but tender love and reverence. May all her descendants rule as wisely as she has done.”

Stargarde when she spoke used as many gestures as Vivienne herself. Then she was brimful of personal magnetism, catching her hearers by the electric brilliance of her bright blue eyes and holding them by the pure and silvery tones of her voice. Vivienne felt her blood stir in her veins as she listened to her. She was loth to have her visitor go, and as she saw her glance at the clock she said hurriedly, “We have wandered from the subject of your up-bringing.”

“Come and see me in my rooms,” said Stargarde rising, “and I will tell you all about myself and how I went to live with the Camperdowns when I was twelve. They are all gone now but Brian,” and she sighed. “How I miss them! Family life is such an exquisite thing. You, poor child, know little of it as yet. Some day you will marry and have a home of your own. You have a lover now, little girl, haven’t you?” and she tilted back Vivienne’s head and looked searchingly into her eyes.

“Yes,” said Vivienne gently.

Stargarde smiled. “Before he takes you away I wish you would come and stay with me for a long time. Now I must fly, I have an appointment at six.”

“Good-bye, Miss Turner,” murmured Vivienne, as her caller took her by the hand.

“Good-bye, Stargarde,” corrected her friend.

“Stargarde—it is a beautiful name,” said the girl.

“It is a great worry to people; they ask me why I was so named, and I never can tell them. I only know that it is German, and is occasionally used in Russia.”

“Are you going? are you going?” called Judy, limping briskly from the other end of the room. “Wait a minute. I want to show you some clothes that I will give you for your poor children.”