The Inner Flame

"Oh, I'm so glad," she said. "All your friends will be so glad."

Had she known it, she might have added, "and all your business associates"; but neither word nor look minimized the enthusiasm of the moment.

Enough of Violet's faith and admiration shone in her speaking eyes to fall like balm on Edgar's wounded soul. He began to heal under it; began to mount into his wonted atmosphere of assurance.

"I've been studying ever since January with Mazzini. I've kept quiet about it because, after all," – the speaker spread his hands in a modest gesture, – "he might be mistaken in his extremely enthusiastic estimate."

"Oh, no, no!" said Violet earnestly. Edgar drank more healing from the fountain of her eyes. "What shall you do? Go into opera?"

"I don't know yet," replied the aspirant, with the air of one who was holding Mr. Hammerstein in the hollow of his hand, uncertain whether to throw him over or to be gracious. "I'm very much alone in this," he added, meeting the girl's gaze with an air of confidence. "Of course my father and mother and sister are willing; in fact, they are pleased that I have undertaken this."

"Think of giving up smoking!" exclaimed Violet. "What a sacrifice that means to a man! I should think your family would see by that how in earnest you are."

"Yes, they believe I am in earnest; but when one in a family is keenly temperamental and the others are not, there are only certain planes on which they can meet, you understand?"

"By all means!" Violet understood perfectly.

"I have certain ideas that I never divulge to them. They would only laugh. What would it mean to them if I were to say that I had purple moods – and red moods – "

"Probably nothing," returned Violet, quickly and with close attention. "Black and green and blue are the only common ones."

Edgar looked at her suspiciously. Had the fountain of healing admiration vanished, and was she laughing at him? Not at all. She was regarding him with a respect and awe which he could not doubt.

"Explain the others to me. Do you think you could?" she asked.

"I'm afraid not," he answered gently, "but, well, for instance, while in the purple mood I could never learn to clog. Does that mean anything to you?"

"Ah, yes," returned Violet fervently. "I see. You would be too intense."

"Exactly. In the red, I might. It would depend on which way it took me."

His listener nodded earnestly. "Yes, yes. A berserk rage is red. They always see red in books."

"But so is a glowing sunset red," said Edgar. "The red of joy. I see you understand. Oh, what rest it is to have people understand!"

Violet glowed. Some memory recurred to her. "Does Mr. Sidney know about this?" she asked.

Edgar shrugged his shoulders. "He is at the island with my people. They may have told him."

The girl's rosy lips set. "Now," she wondered, "would he chuckle over foolish sketches of conceited robins! At all events, he would very soon give it up."

The two travellers had a wonderful day together, undaunted by heat and cinders.

Edgar gave Violet as dainty a luncheon as circumstances permitted, and when they reached Portland too late for the last boat, he left her at her hotel with the promise to call for her in the morning.

The boat they took next day was the same one which bore Miss Jane Foster to her summer home; so when, after the cooling ride down the bay, they arrived at Brewster's Island and saw Philip Sidney and Eliza Brewster waiting with Kathleen, Edgar pointed Eliza out to Violet with amusement.

"I wonder how Sidney enjoys his shadow," he remarked, "I suppose she's trailing him all over the place."

As Mrs. Wright had no expectation of her niece's early arrival, Eliza looked out with indifference from under her closely tied shade hat at the fair girl in neat tailor gown who stood by Edgar as the boat pulled in; and the exclamation of her companions was her first intimation that it was Violet Manning.

Eliza stood quietly amid the greeting and laughing and explanations of the young people, and was introduced to Miss Manning; then she caught sight of Jane Foster, for whose eagerly expected face Phil had been gazing over the heads of everybody, notwithstanding that he had no idea what she looked like.

"Better go home with the Fabians and come to us later," she suggested, speaking low to him.

"Guess again, Eliza," he returned softly. Then he turned to Kathleen. "I'll not interrupt your first tête-à-tête with your brother. I'll walk up the hill with Miss Manning and see Mrs. Wright's face when we appear."

Kathleen nodded her agreement, and when they all reached the road, she opened her eyes at the manner in which her brother parted from Violet. Neither spoke. They clasped hands and exchanged a look, which was, to say the least, unusual.

"You and Miss Manning seemed to be giving each other the grip," she laughed when the two began their ascent slowly. "Do you belong to the same secret society?"

His reply was still more amazing. "We do," he answered impressively. "You guessed right the very first time. That girl has more sense in a minute than the general run have in years."

"I always liked her," returned Kathleen, wondering.

As for Philip, he carried Violet's suitcase and Miss Foster's bag and received the jubilant chatter of the young girl with appreciative assent, casting sheep's eyes all the way up the hill at the modest owner of the chicken-house, who little suspected that the big handsome young man who was carrying her bag cared more to get one monosyllable from her than for all the pleasant things this pretty girl might say to him.

Mrs. Wright, busy taking Eliza's place in the preparations for the early dinner, was not watching for the arrival, and the first warning she had of Violet's presence was two vigorous arms being thrown around her neck.

Her first impression was that Jane Foster had an attack of emotional insanity, but in a moment she was returning the embrace.

"My little girl, what does this mean?" she cried joyously. "Not a flower in your room. Nothing ready."

"Yes, dinner is. I can smell it. Oh, Aunt Amy, you and vacation, and no city and no heat, and the divine island smell, and twenty-four hours in the day, and seven days in the week. Oh, it's too much happiness!" And Violet danced back into the living-room straight into the arms of Mr. Wright, who had just been washing his hands for dinner.

"Right you are, Violet. No place like the island," he said heartily, while Eliza and Jane Foster regarded the newcomer with calm wonder. How could they know the glamour that was gilding all?

Phil was so preoccupied, he scarcely noticed the girl's antics. His eyes were fixed with the most lover-like eagerness on Jane Foster's serious countenance.

"Had you better ask her or I, Eliza?" he murmured, under cover of Violet's laughter.

"You'd better not trust me," replied Eliza darkly, upon which Phil interrupted Miss Foster as she was starting for the stairs.

"Might I speak to you one moment before you go up?" he asked.

Her calm eyes turned to him. "You want board?" she asked.

"No – not exactly. Would you mind coming outside a minute. I'd like to see you alone."

Jane Foster looked into the brilliant face, wondering; then she followed him outside the door. Perhaps he wanted to buy the farmhouse. She had made some calculation before she reached the rustic bench; but his first words dashed her expectations.

"Miss Foster, I'm an artist and like them all, at first, I haven't any money. I've been wondering if you'd let me camp down in your chicken-house and do some work. What rent would you want?"

Jane Foster regarded him calmly. "'T ain't habitable," she said.

"I'll make it so," he returned forcefully.

"I can't imagine – " she began slowly.

"You don't have to," he interrupted ardently. "Imagining is my business." He beamed upon her with a smile that warmed her through and through from the chill of the boat. "If you haven't any other use for it just now – "

"Oh, 'tain't any use," she said slowly.

"Then I may?" Phil embarrassed Miss Foster terribly by seizing her hand.

Violet observed them from a window. "Is Mr. Sidney proposing to Miss Foster?" she laughed, turning to Eliza.

"Yes, he is, exactly," returned the latter, hanging up her shade hat.

"Well, I can't imagine anyone refusing him," said Violet.

"I only hope she will," muttered Eliza; but the devout words were scarcely out of her lips when Phil came into the room like a cyclone and she was seized and swung up till her respectable head nearly grazed the ceiling.

"It's mine," he cried. "Hurray!" and went out of the house again and across the field toward the boulder cottage.

CHAPTER XXII

THE NEW STUDIO

In spite of the incense Edgar had been receiving, he was still a somewhat chastened being; and he had no disagreeable remarks to make about Phil when Mrs. Fabian wondered why he stayed so long at the Wright cottage. He objected to the fact somewhat on his own account. No doubt Violet was entertaining Philip. She had the artistic soul and Phil was horribly good-looking. It was a soothing thought that he was practically penniless and that he must soon return to his labors in New York.

"How long are you expecting Phil to stay here?" he asked his mother after a glance or two across the empty field.

"He says only a week," replied Mrs. Fabian, "but I hope to make it at least two. He's daft about the island."

"But he couldn't work here," said Edgar with conviction. "You've no place for oil and turpentine and splotches generally."

"That's what he says," sighed Mrs. Fabian. "I told him this morning we'd give up the summer-house to him."

Edgar faced her. "Where do I come in?" he asked. "I expect the summer-house to save your lives from me. I don't believe we can have two artists in the family."

Kathleen caught the last words as she came downstairs. "Don't worry," she said lightly. "Phil will have none of us. He wants either a ten-acre lot or a stable."

"Well, where is he?" asked Edgar, with some irritation. "I'm as hungry as a hunter."

"And we have Aunt Mary's pretty things. Eliza gave them to mother."

"You don't say so! Well, the Angel of Peace has moulted a feather on this island. There, I see Phil now, loping across the field. Do order dinner to be served, mother."

The music-box was playing when the guest entered.

"Oh, am I late?" he cried contritely, and took the stairs in three bounds.

"How burned he is already!" laughed Mrs. Fabian. "You will be looking like that in a few days, Edgar."

The latter was standing, high-chested and with repressed impatience, in an attitude his mother knew. He had not at all liked the radiance of Phil's countenance as the latter burst into the room.

"This dinner is especially ordered for you, dear," said Mrs. Fabian soothingly, "from the clam soup to the strawberry shortcake."

"When am I going to have any of it?" inquired Edgar. "Is it worth while to be formal here?"

"Oh, he'll be down in one minute," said Kathleen; and indeed Philip soon appeared and they all seated themselves.

"Last offence, really," said the guest gaily, "but one must be granted a little extra license when he's proposing."

The waitress had placed the filled soup-plates before the family sat down; and Edgar promptly choked on his first mouthful. Violet had told him of meeting Phil in Gramercy Park. Where else and how often had the perfidious girl been with him?

Kathleen swallowed her spoonful of soup, but it was not hot enough to account for the strange burning heat which suddenly travelled down her spine.

Mrs. Fabian alone looked up. "Don't take our breath away like that," she protested. "Who is the woman? Violet Manning or Eliza Brewster?"

"I dreamed of her all last night," returned Phil, eating hungrily. "I knew she was coming, and I could hardly wait to learn my fate. Didn't you notice that I merely played with my breakfast this morning?"

"You ate like a hunter. Didn't he, Kathleen?"

Phil laughed and raised his happy eyes to his hostess.

"Well, you'd save a whole lot of dinner this noon, only that she said 'Yes.'"

There was a miniature storm of hurt vanity in Edgar Fabian's breast. That was the way with these "lookers." Let them have scarce the price of a laundry bill, yet a girl couldn't resist them; and that gaze of almost awed admiration in Violet's eyes yesterday. It had meant nothing then but a tribute to genius. Phil should not have that look at his table daily! Edgar wouldn't stand it. He would match his singing against the other's painting, and time would show if Philip Sidney would have a walk-away. She couldn't be happy with a pauper like that, and she should be saved.

As for Kathleen, she could not stop to criticize Philip's blunt announcement. Whether he were jesting or in earnest his sudden words had flashed an awful light upon her own sentiments.

"There's no depth to it," she thought now in defence of her pain. "I know in time."

"Tell us more this minute," said Mrs. Fabian, "and stop eating, you unromantic creature! I didn't even suspect that you knew Violet Manning well. You sly-boots. I'm offended with you."

"The lovely Violet!" exclaimed Phil, "I left her having an attack of emotional insanity over there."

He looked up and met a gaze from Edgar, suggestive of locking horns; and remembered Gramercy Park, and Violet's sudden dignity.

"But not on my account," he went on easily. "My inamorata's name is Jane!" He cast his eyes adoringly ceilingward. "Dear little name! Quaint little name! Jane!"

The relaxation that travelled throughout Kathleen's limbs was as painful and as exasperating as the burn had been. Her eyes were fixed on her soup-plate, and she smiled.

Edgar's teeth shone with the utmost glee. Phil wasn't such a bad sort after all. He regarded him with interest, waiting for the sequel.

"Philip Sidney, don't be idiotic," said Mrs. Fabian. "My soup is getting cold waiting for you to explain yourself."

"Why, Jane Foster came this morning, mother," said Kathleen. "I'll help you out."

"And I can really only stay with you a week, Aunt Isabel," added Phil.

"She has taken you for a boarder? And all this fuss is about that?" asked Mrs. Fabian. "I should scarcely have thought you'd be so crazy to change my house for hers."

"I know how Phil feels," said Edgar benevolently. "He wants to feel free to make smudges."

"I do, Edgar, mind-reader that you are. Listen, then, all of you. I proposed to Jane that she let me use her chicken-house, and Jane, blessings on her, said the one little word to make me a happy man."

Phil's radiant gaze was bent now upon Kathleen, who met it and nodded. "Just the thing!" she said, and her mother and brother started in on a Babel of tongues. Mrs. Fabian had forgotten the chicken-house. She had not been in that field for years; but Edgar approved, and altogether they joined in Phil's jubilation, and Mrs. Fabian related how she had prepared Pat to pack for just such an exigency.

"The little house is awfully dilapidated," said Kathleen. "Its piazza has fallen off; and I'm sure it leaks. But perhaps you can make it fit to hold your paraphernalia."

"Aunt Isabel, I want you and Kathleen to keep away until I'm in order," said Phil impressively. "You'd try to discourage me and that would waste your time. Eliza is almost in tears, but I know what I want and what I can do."

"A chicken-house!" exclaimed Mrs. Fabian, with second thoughts of disgust.

"Yes, nobody can come near but Edgar; and if he does, he'll have to scrub."

"Thank you very much," and the young man raised his eyebrows: "I have my own work to do, you may remember." Scrubbing chicken-houses he thought might even eclipse the memory of lighting the oil-stove.

"Of course," returned Phil, all attention. "I'm extremely interested in this determination of yours. You certainly have the goods."

"So they tell me," said Edgar, and twisted his mustache.

"What are you going to do for furniture?" asked Mrs. Fabian. "You must at least have some chairs and a table."

"And a lounge!" cried Phil, – "and an oil-stove." He laughed toward Edgar. "I'm going to live there, best of aunts, and maybe take my dinners with Jane, the star of my existence!"

"Phil, you're crazy," said Mrs. Fabian, despairing. "You will continue to live here and work over there."

He shook his head gaily. "Don't worry. Just watch; and if you have any attic treasures in the way of furniture, let me store them for you."

When Mrs. Fabian really understood the enterprise Phil was embarking upon, she resigned herself, and finding an old suit of Mr. Fabian's which he had used for fishing, she bestowed it upon her guest.

Then the work commenced. Eliza tried with a lofty sense of devotion to lend a hand and even besought the privilege; but she was repulsed. Philip induced Captain James to take an interest in his scheme and render him assistance at certain epochs in the reconstruction period, but the Captain and Jane Foster were the only persons privileged to come near the scene of operations; and Miss Foster's heart so far went out to her strong, determined young tenant that she began hunting in her own garret for things to help him along.

With shovel and wheelbarrow, scrubbing-brushes, soapsuds, disinfectants, hammer and nails, Phil went to work.

Eliza stood on her boundary-line, her hands on her hips, and watched, her long nose lifted, while loads of refuse and debris were patiently wheeled down to the edge of the bank and given over to the cleansing tide.

Violet generously offered her window which gave upon the scene of operations, and the opera-glass with which she watched birds; but Eliza declined.

"I won't spy on him," she said, adding vindictively, "but I'll look – the obstinate boy!"

The first time Kathleen called, Violet took her up to her room and they sat in the open window.

"The opera-glass is scarcely any use," she explained, "for he hasn't washed the windows yet and you can't see in at all."

Kathleen laughed, but shrank back. "I don't want him to think we're watching," she replied.

"Oh, he knows we all are; but even after he has gone at night, we don't dare to go and look in. We can't pass that rock there – not even Eliza."

A charming tenor voice suddenly sounded on the air, singing an aria from "La Bohème." The girls looked and saw Edgar advancing toward the chicken-house, peering in curiously.

Suddenly, Phil, attired in a sweater and Mr. Fabian's trousers which scarcely reached his ankles, dashed out at the caller and pressed a scrubbing-brush on his acceptance. Edgar suddenly stopped his lay and ran, laughing, toward Mrs. Wright's, where he found the girls and took them out on the water.

"I should think you'd want to help him," said Kathleen wistfully.

"I do," replied Edgar, "but I restrain myself. Phil doesn't want me, really," he added; and he was certainly right. Phil had no time to stumble over Marcellines.

A week passed. Jane Foster had been smiling and important for the last few days, but not for kingdoms would Eliza have questioned her. She had acquired an air of calm indifference, which belied the burning curiosity within. When Phil stopped in passing to speak with her, she talked of the weather. Mrs. Wright, on the contrary, expressed her eagerness to see what was going on so near and yet so far from them.

"Pluto gets ahead of us," she said, "and you've trained him so well he never tells anything."

Edgar happened to be present and he shrugged his shoulders. "Better hurry up, Phil," he remarked, "and have your opening before interest wanes. You'll have an anti-climax the first thing you know."

Mrs. Wright turned the gentle radiance of her eyes on the speaker.

"We heard you last night, singing as you went home, Mr. Fabian," she said: "that lovely voice floating across the field will make us famous. People will hear it and wonder about the source, and begin to talk of the angel of Brewster's Island."

"Wonderfully level-headed people, those Wrights," soliloquized Edgar, as he sauntered home. "A distinct acquisition to the island." Some thought occurred to him. "I wish father could have heard that," he mused.

Phil lingered behind him. He had changed into his own clothes remarkably early this afternoon. There was an hour yet before supper-time.

"Where are the rest of your family this afternoon?" he asked.

"Violet went with Kathleen into the woods to get some specimens she wants for her microscope," replied Mrs. Wright.

"Where's Eliza?" Phil smiled as he asked it, and his companion smiled in answer.

"In her room, I think."

Phil raised his eyebrows interrogatively.

"Yes, I think so, a little," she replied softly, nodding. "You see Jane has been there every day."

"But that's all the rent I pay," protested Phil, all very quietly, for though they were standing outdoors, the windows were open.

"Yes, but – it's a good deal for flesh and blood to bear," said Mrs. Wright with a twinkling glance. "The green-eyed monster ramps at the best of us, you know."

"I wonder if I could see Eliza," said Phil in his natural voice.

"Yes, I think she's in her room," returned Mrs. Wright. "I'll go and see."

She disappeared, and Phil's eyes roved to the boulder cottage and fixed there. A smile touched the corners of his lips. He had not meant to carry prohibition too far with Eliza. It was genuine desire to save her trouble as well as the wish to surprise her after her vehement opposition to his scheme, which had made him warn her away. Now he was eager to make it right with her.

"I remember now," said Mrs. Wright, returning; "Eliza went down the hill this afternoon. I don't know just when she'll come back; but won't you sit down and wait for her?"

"Thank you, I don't believe I will. I'll come back later. I've been a runaway guest all this week," and with a smile of farewell, an eager look grew in Phil's eyes as he started to run across the field toward home.

In all his arrangements, each time he had gained an effect he had thought of Kathleen's amusement and appreciation.

As soon as he found that Eliza was out of the question, his eagerness burst forth to get the girls' point of view. He met Violet Manning returning from the woods escorted by Edgar.

"I open the studio to-morrow," he cried gaily. "Will you come to my tea at three-thirty?"

"Will we!" exclaimed Violet. "We couldn't have lasted much longer! I'm glad you let us see it 'before' so we can fully appreciate it 'after.'"

Violet was looking pretty and very happy. Phil considered for one moment whether he should ask her to pour. Even yet he felt that Kathleen lived in a remote rarefied air of elegance. Would one dare ask her to dispense tea in a chicken-house? But he wisely kept silence. Aunt Isabel might yet enter into what she continued to term his foolishness.

With a wave of his hand, he fled on his way, and found Kathleen, flushed from her walk, carrying mosses to the table in the wind-break.

"I've finished," he cried, vaulting over the railing and appearing beside her. "Want to see it?"

She looked up into his expectant eyes.

"Are we invited?" she returned.

"To-morrow, everybody is; but I thought I'd like you to see it right now – if you aren't too tired."

"A private view!" she exclaimed. "Who was ever too tired for that? But I'm of the earth so earthy, I shall have to go in and wash my hands."

"No, no, don't," replied Phil softly. "You'd meet Aunt Isabel, and this is to be clandestine. Wipe your hands on this," – he pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket, – "and come."

Kathleen laughed and brushing her fingers free of traces of the treasured moss, she wiped them and they started across the field.

"Here's hoping Violet and Edgar don't see us," said Phil, and took the path he had trodden so often straight to the hen-house, and which did not pass very near the Wrights.

As they approached, Kathleen looked curiously at the little cottage with its sloping red roof, nestling close to the ground on the breast of the hill and sheltered by the tall Balm-of-Gilead trees. Their rustling leaves held always a murmur as of rain and to-day fleecy white clouds piled against the blue sky behind the cottage.