The Inner Flame

Edgar, very red in the face, swung his patent leather feet for a minute and then jumped down. "We must be going, Kath," he said stiffly.

"Not till you've found the mahl-stick," she drawled, with stars in her eyes. "My brother is so curious about your painting implements, Mr. Sidney."

"They're in these boxes," responded Phil. "The very ones that dear little Aunt Mary used."

He had paid the expressman and was pulling down his cuffs. His guests were both standing.

"Personally," he continued, "I think the contents of the barrel more interesting just now. You mustn't go without a cup of tea. One moment and I'll make a raid on Pat for a hammer."

Phil left the room and Edgar still stood, quite flushed under his sister's smile.

"Do you want any tea?" he asked severely.

"I think I do," replied Kathleen.

"I'll send the car back for you, then."

"Not at all," she answered; and when the girl's voice took this tone and her eyes narrowed, her brother usually paid attention. After all, Kathleen was a useful court of last appeal. It was unwise to offend her.

"What's the matter? Eliza can chaperone you," he protested.

Simultaneously with Phil's disappearance Eliza had moved to the window and looked out on the advancing twilight. She heard the words, and her thin lips tightened.

"That's the very cat that assaulted and battered mother," went on Edgar, and although he lowered his voice Eliza heard the words and smiled grimly at a neighboring stable.

Kathleen frowned and motioned with her head toward the black alpaca back.

Edgar shrugged his immaculate shoulders.

"Well, tell me when you have had enough of it," he said, and threw himself back on the pile of blankets.

Kathleen was just planning some civil overture to Eliza when the host reappeared, a hatchet in his hand.

"That bold son of Erin dares to imply that I borrowed his hammer yesterday," he announced. "If I did, it is in Mrs. Maloney's closet; and if there it is as a needle in a haystack; for that closet, Miss Fabian, is responsible for the air of chaste elegance you observe in this apartment. If you'll all stand aside, not to be bombarded when I open the door, I will give one glimpse within."

Phil opened the closet door cautiously, and deftly caught a mandolin as it bounded forth.

"Sole relic of glee-club days," he remarked. "I don't know why I brought it, for I couldn't play 'Yankee Doodle' on it now."

He delved further into the closet, and Edgar, picking up the mandolin as one friend in a strange land, removed it from its case with slow and condescending touch.

"Here's the hammer on the sink," said Eliza suddenly.

"Saved!" exclaimed Phil, pushing back billowing folds of grey. "I was just about losing in a combat with a bath-wrapper. Now, with these chairs and the hammer, what is to prevent our salon from being the most delightful success?"

"Nothing!" exclaimed Kathleen, standing at the end of the table. "I have found some sketches, Mr. Sidney. May I look at them?"

"Certainly." The artist took the hammer and began an attack on the barrel which caused Edgar to raise his eyebrows in annoyance. He was testing the strings of the mandolin.

"Shall I light the stove?" asked Eliza.

"No, you're the guest of honor. Sit down, Eliza, and watch us. Mr. Fabian will light the stove."

"Heaven forbid," exclaimed Edgar devoutly, "that I should touch the enemy of my peace!"

Kathleen, her lip caught between her teeth as she turned the sketches with concentrated interest, sent an ironical glance toward her brother, strumming the mandolin on the blanket couch.

"Yes, you're elected, Fabian," said Phil, deftly removing the barrel-hoop. "You have the matches. You see the peace and calm on my brow? That is because I am serene in the knowledge of a lemon and a bag of sugar outside on the window ledge."

Reluctantly Edgar laid down the mandolin and approached the stove.

"What do you do?" he asked superciliously. "Turn on something at the bottom, and light it at the top?"

"Edgar," warned his sister, "it isn't gas."

"Marrow-bones, Fabian, get down on them," said Phil good-humoredly; and disgustedly Edgar knelt to his bête noir.

Eliza's fingers itched to help him. She obeyed Phil's warning gestures to keep her seat until the match was finally applied to the wicks. Then, seeing that they were turned too high, she pounced down on the floor beside the young man, and pushing his immaculate arm away she lowered the wicks.

Edgar stared at the familiarity. "Excuse me," she said shortly.

"Must have a finger in the pie, eh?" remarked Phil.

"Do you know how long it'd take to get this room so full o' soot we couldn't stay in it?" asked Eliza. "I wonder what sort of a mess you're goin' to live in here, Mr. Sidney, if you don't know that?"

"It's a smokeless one," protested Phil meekly.

"The cat's foot!" quoth Eliza scornfully. "Don't tell me! There's no such thing." She partly filled the kettle and placed it on the stove, watching the wicks with a jealous eye.

Edgar removed himself from danger and looked with exasperation at Kathleen, who with eyes aglow was turning the sketches.

"If I ever worked as hard for tea as this I'll be hung!" he thought, and returned to the mandolin as the one congenial object in a forlorn abode.

Even its long silent strings spoke plaintively against the vulgar banging which was removing the barrel-head.

"There!" exclaimed Phil presently. "I rather fancy the way I did that. I can use that barrel again."

"Yes," assented Edgar as he strummed, "for kindlings for the oil-stove."

Phil drew the barrel nearer the table.

"Now for the plums in the pudding," he said, and began to draw forth some papered cups from the excelsior.

Kathleen dropped the sketches and unwrapped the packages. She had stood three cups and saucers on the table before Eliza turned from her labors about the stove.

"What delightful old things!" exclaimed the girl.

"Now, aren't you glad you stayed?" asked Phil, bringing forth a silver cream pitcher of long ago.

Eliza caught sight of the table, and suddenly threw up both hands with an exclamation.

"Mr. Sidney!" she cried. "I've given you the wrong barrel!"

"What? What's happened?" inquired Phil, halted by her tragic tone.

"All Mrs. Ballard's best things are in that barrel; the old china that was her mother's, and the solid silver, and everything; and I've gone and sent yours with the substantial crockery and the beddin' to the island!"

Edgar Fabian regarded Eliza as inimically as his stepmother might have done. So this old servant had been carrying off the heirlooms and been discovered.

He sat up very straight on his blanket couch.

"I'll speak to my mother," he said. "She can come over to-morrow and get them, and buy the right sort of thing for a bachelor" – he threw a glance around the plastered room – "apartment!"

Phil, not realizing the sensitiveness of the subject, laughed.

"Good work, Eliza! We'll have one aristocratic tea in the Sidney studio, before we fall to stone china and mugs."

"The others ain't stone china and mugs," cried Eliza. She was trembling from head to foot, as frightened and enraged by Edgar's suggestion as if her own life had been at stake. "They're all good, comfortable things. If it was safe I'd leave all these for you, Mr. Philip, just as liefs to as not, for she loved you; but you are gone all day; they'd be stole – just as Mr. Fabian says."

Edgar blinked, then his face grew scarlet as the servant's implication grew upon him.

"What do you mean – you – !"

He leaped to his feet and faced Eliza, who glared back at him. "These things should belong to my mother," he said, "and it's a good thing you didn't succeed in getting away with them. She may set some value on the old stuff. I don't know."

"Edgar!" exclaimed Kathleen, as scarlet as he, while the duel had all happened so suddenly that the host stared, dazed.

He had just lifted another silver piece from the barrel and taken it from its flannel bag.

"They do not belong to your mother," returned Eliza angrily. "They belong to me, to have and to hold, or to give away as I see fit."

Edgar shrugged. "Oh, in that case – " he returned. He didn't like Eliza's eyes.

"In that case," said Phil to him gravely, "I think you'll feel better to apologize to the woman who has put Aunt Mary's relatives under lifelong obligation for her devoted care."

Edgar tossed his head with a scornful grimace.

"Yes, I understand perfectly," went on Phil, coloring; "Aunt Mary was no kin to you, and I understand that she was a person held in little consideration by your family." The host's attitude was tense now, and his look compelling. "Nevertheless, Eliza Brewster happens to be my honored guest to-day, and I'm sure you will be glad to express your regret for your choice of words."

"Edgar, you didn't understand," said Kathleen. "Say so. Why, of course, you're glad to say so."

"No, I didn't understand," remarked Edgar with a languid air, strumming the mandolin, "and now that I do, I don't know that it is very interesting."

Phil saw Kathleen's acute distress.

"Very sorry, I'm sure," continued the young man, nodding toward Eliza. "You can run away with your barrel and welcome. The Fabians will still have cups and saucers. I think," returning Phil's grave gaze contemptuously, "if your honored guest should apologize for her attack on my mother, it would be quite as much to the point. You heard her say that mother would come over and steal her trash, didn't you? Come, Kathleen." The speaker dropped the mandolin, squared his shoulders, and started for the door.

"No; oh, no!" exclaimed Phil, all his hearty Western hospitality in arms at the sight of his girl guest's expression.

Edgar turned on him again. "I fancied that my mother had been rather civil to you since your arrival. I'll tell her how you guard her dignity."

Edgar was fairly swelling with emotion, one fourth of which was indignant defence of his mother, and three fourths joy at a clear case against the poverty-stricken artist who had dared set his own sacred person on a barrel and make him light an oil-stove.

Kathleen's scarlet face and lambent eyes spoke her distress. Phil, faced with condoning the slur on his kind hostess, was bewildered and uncertain.

Eliza saw it all and was the most disturbed of the four.

"Oh, Mr. Fabian, it's all my fault!" she exclaimed, looking appealingly at Edgar. "Please stay for tea."

"Really, you know," said Phil, "this is all a tempest in a tea-pot." He held up Aunt Mary's graceful old-colonial silver. "This one would be too big to hold it."

"Come, Kath," said Edgar, ignoring them. "Will you come with me or shall I wait for you in the car?"

Kathleen gave him an imploring look, but he was already moving to the door.

Phil took an impulsive step toward her. "Perhaps you will stay," he said, in supreme discomfort. She gave him a little smile. "No, I mustn't," she answered gently. "I'm sorry I hadn't finished looking at the sketches."

"May I bring them over to you?"

She shook her head. "I go back to school in the morning. Good-bye, I wish you all success."

Eliza stood with tight-clasped hands. It had been her fault that the bud of an acquaintance which might have been serviceable to her young friend had been blighted. They would tell Mrs. Fabian. She might visit her anger upon him. Eliza had never expected to feel gratitude toward one of the name, but her surprise was mingled with that sentiment when Kathleen now approached her, laying her smooth gloved hand on the rough clasped ones to say good-bye.

"You are going to Brewster's Island?" she asked. "It is a strange time of year."

"'Twas my home once," replied Eliza, tragedy of past and present so evident in her haggard face that a touch of pity stirred the girl's heart.

"I heard," said Kathleen, "that Mrs. Wright is staying there. How can she in the desolate winter?"

"I guess angels can live anywhere," responded Eliza. Her disturbed eyes met Kathleen's. "Miss Fabian," and her hard hand grasped the gloved one, "I don't care how cold the winter's goin' to be if only you'll promise me that I haven't done any harm to this boy here by my foolish talk. He ain't to blame if I seemed to – to speak about your mother. Don't, don't let her blame him for it. If I thought she would – if I thought I'd cut him off from friends – some day when I get to thinkin' about it up there on that hill I feel as if I should jump into the water and done with it."

"I'll explain," said Kathleen gently. "I hope you'll have a good winter. I'm glad you will have Mrs. Wright."

When the girl turned back, Edgar had gone; and the veil of perfunctoriness had fled from her host's eyes. He was looking at her as friend at friend.

He escorted her downstairs, and out through the alley to the waiting limousine within which, with elevated feet, Edgar was already solacing himself with a cigarette. At sight of the approaching pair, he leaped from the car, and received his sister with hauteur.

"Good-bye," said Phil composedly, when they were inside; "very good of you to come."

He closed the door, the machine started, and he returned to the stable, where Pat received him with a grin, still standing where he had risen when Kathleen passed through a minute ago. "I say, me bye," he said huskily, jerking his thumb in the direction of the stairway, "the auld one above there – she's yer second best girl, I'm thinkin'. That one," pointing to the street, "she do be a princess all roight. She turned them lamps on me when she first come in and asked for you, and I felt chape 'cause the stairs wasn't marble; but look out, me son, I know that breed. She'll make ye toe the mark."

Phil smiled. "To be honest with you, Pat, I have just one best girl," he said emphatically.

Pat looked up at him with admiration.

"Is she in New York, thin?"

"Sometimes I think I shall get a glimpse of her here."

"Sure if she knows where ye are ye will, thin!" said Pat devoutly. "How does she dress so I'll know her? I'll be on the watch."

"Just now in scarlet and gold," said Phil, lifting his head and gazing beyond the stable wall.

"Faith, she knows a thing or two," nodded Pat. "'Tis an old dodge, 'Red and Yeller, ketch a feller.'"

"In winter she goes all in white," said Phil, "soft, pure, spotless."

"Moighty wasteful fer the city!" said Pat seriously. " 'Twill be hard on yer pocket, me bye."

"In spring she's in golden-green among the browns, but in summer, full, glorious green, Pat. Oh, she's a wonderful girl, a goddess!"

"Sure she is if she knows that green's the best of all the game," exclaimed the Irishman. "Whin'll she be comin'?"

"Ah, I have to go to her, Pat."

"'Tis better so," agreed the other.

"I've thought she might meet me sometime out in the park."

"She can, sir." Pat gave Phil's shoulder a sounding slap.

"But I notice the park gate is kept locked."

"It is," agreed Pat, with shining face, "and 'tis meself has a key. 'Twill be yours for the askin' any day in the week."

"Great!" responded Phil. "I'll remember that."

"And sure I'll be lookin'," thought Pat, watching the artist take the stairway in bounds. "The women'll mob that bye afore he gets through. Sure I'd like to see the gurl brings that look to his eyes."

CHAPTER IX

HEIRLOOMS

As the Fabian car started toward home, Edgar hoped his sister would rally him on his failure to chastise the puny artist from the West. Anything was better than one of Kathleen's "stills," as he called his sister's periods of scornful silence. He was Kathleen's elder, he was her brother. By every law of propriety she should be guided by him and lean upon his opinions; but as he now reflected she was "more apt to jump on them."

At present her sombre eyes looked straight ahead under the picture hat, and her countenance expressed only composure of mind and body. He had thrown away his cigarette, and he began to hum the favorite aria from "Madam Butterfly." Kathleen, if she spoke at all, would probably try to persuade him to say nothing to their mother of the scene just passed. He would offer her an opening for speech. Perhaps she was anxious in spite of her acted composure.

"I heard 'Butterfly' last week," he said. "Farrar can have me."

Silence.

"Well," he looked around at the slender dark face with the eyes full of slumberous fire. "Well, why don't you get off one of those juices of yours about the fair Geraldine probably not being aware of her good luck, et cetera?"

The chauffeur was playing with the speed limit. They would soon be at home. Kathleen realized that this would be the only opportunity to speak with her brother alone.

She slowly turned her head and met his quickly averted gaze. "You are not usually so chivalrous toward mother," she said. "Why did you think it worth while to make such a fuss?"

"Twitting on facts is bad taste," declared Edgar with his usual air of insouciance. If his sister would only talk, all would be well.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Why, Aunt Mary's faithful retainer showed the poorest possible taste. She said if mother knew that those antiques were left unprotected by anything but the oil-stove, she would prance over to that stable and nab them."

Kathleen stared at him. "Do you mean that she would?"

"Like a shot," responded Edgar cheerfully. "Wasn't I bound to resent it?"

Kathleen kept silence a space. Since she had been at home this time, her mother had told her with some excitement of Eliza's presumption in retaining articles of no value to a servant.

"And whether I was warranted or not," went on Edgar, elated by her muteness, "'there comes an opportunity in the lives of men' which seldom knocks on a man's door the second time. I flatter myself I was quick enough to shut the box between that wild and woolly Westerner and us, so that he won't expect anything more of me, in any event."

"I should think not," returned Kathleen slowly. "The childish way you took your playthings and went home was ridiculous."

Edgar's face flamed. "Don't be nasty, Kathleen, just because you know how," he said, dropping his careless tone. "No doubt you thought it was very funny to see me lifted about like a doll, and on my knees lighting a stove. I went there to please you, but I can tell you a very little of alleys and stables will do for me. When I go slumming it'll be where the poor know their place and know mine."

"Oh, Edgar," said Kathleen hopelessly. "Well, is it your intention to tell mother what happened?"

"I'm going to keep that up my sleeve. It may come in handy sometime."

"It would hurt her feelings, and do no good," said the girl.

"Do no good? What! Not if it kept her from inviting the cowboy early and often to the house? Oh, yes, I've no doubt he's got you all right. He's a looker, and girls are all alike."

Kathleen did not condescend to notice this thrust. Her eyes turned back to gaze upon the road as it flew beneath their car. "Don't lie awake planning to avoid Mr. Sidney," she said quietly. "He will probably always see you first; but from the moment you tell mother about this petty little scene we've just passed through, you need never come to me for assistance in any line. I shall not give it to you."

Stealing a side glance at his sister's face, Edgar Fabian knew that she meant what she said.

"Supposing," she went on presently, "that you had smoothed over an awkward moment, and that we had had tea in Aunt Mary's egg-shell cups, and had let that brave fellow think he was giving us pleasure, and that you had sung something to his mandolin in your charming voice; – think of the difference in situation to us all. Instead of four hurt people, scattering, and feeling awkward and ashamed, we should have given the stranger in a strange land a little housewarming to begin life with here."

"Not four hurt people, if you please," retorted Edgar with bravado; but he was surprised, and somewhat affected by his sister's picture. His charming voice would doubtless have increased the host's respect for him.

"I expect sometime, of course," he went on with a superior air, "to be a patron of the arts to a certain extent. If the cowboy makes good, and learns to keep his hands off his betters, I may do something for him yet."

Kathleen's risibles were not easily stirred; but now she laughed low, and so heartily that Edgar's inflation over her compliment to his voice became as a pricked balloon. She even wiped away a tear as she ceased.

"Philip Sidney is going to interest the patrons of art," she said at last.

"What makes you so sure?" asked Edgar with a sneer. "His physique?"

"His sketches, his superiority to his circumstances, and his behavior to Eliza," returned Kathleen composedly.

"Great Scott!" exclaimed her brother. "I'd like to see myself saddled with that gargoyle and a wild-cat, in an unfurnished stable on a dismal afternoon."

"Yes, you've shown your sympathy and assistance in a manly and powerful manner," said Kathleen, as the car stopped before the brown-stone front of their home.

"Sarcasm, Miss Fabian," returned her brother, as he assisted her to alight, "is the cheapest and meanest of weapons. Each one to his taste. That state of things suited him. It wouldn't suit me. That's all. It takes all sorts of people to make the world."

Mrs. Fabian was in the drawing-room, and as her children entered she looked up expectantly, then her face fell.

"I told you to bring Phil back with you to tea."

"I forgot it, mother, really," said Kathleen. She sat down and began taking off her gloves. "But he couldn't have come."

"No," added Edgar. "He had a guest; your friend Eliza Brewster was there with her cat."

"Eliza!" echoed Mrs. Fabian, sitting up. "Is she going to cook for Philip?"

"No," said Kathleen. "She is going to Brewster's Island to-night."

"I tried," added Edgar, "to get her to send you the cat as a souvenir, but she refused."

"I'm glad she is leaving town," said Mrs. Fabian. "She is a very ungrateful person and I detest ingratitude. Moreover, a person who is in an anomalous position is always annoying, and Aunt Mary made Eliza so much a member of her family that the woman doesn't know her place. What was she doing over at Phil's?"

"Overseeing the moving in of Aunt Mary's dunnage," replied Edgar.

"Why! Has he more than one room?" asked Mrs. Fabian with interest.

"No, mother," said Kathleen, in a tone designed to offset Edgar's sprightly scorn. "He has just one, and nothing in it but piles of Indian blankets and a table and chair."

"The chair for Eliza, mind you," put in Edgar, "while Kathleen and I were stowed on the floor."

A spark glowed in the girl's eyes as she regarded her brother. "He let you sit on a barrel, I remember," she said.

"Oh, yes," returned Edgar; "and speaking of barrels," he went on, a belligerent spark glowing in his eyes, "a ripping thing happened. All this old stuff came over while we were there, and among them a barrel of dishes. Well, Sidney opened it and began taking out the things, but instead of the coarse stuff Eliza had meant to give him, there were gold-banded china, and colonial silver tea-things – "

Mrs. Fabian's backbone suddenly seemed of steel. "Aunt Mary had a few fine old things," she interrupted.

"Well, there they were. She'd given Sidney the wrong barrel. You should have seen her face. She was ready to faint."

"You say she leaves to-night?" Mrs. Fabian's eyes were looking far away through the wall of her house toward Gramercy Park. "Philip won't want the care of those delicate old things," she added. "I'll get some proper ones for him in the morning."

Edgar laughed gleefully, none the less that Kathleen's lips were grave.

"If I were you, mother," said the girl, "I would let them work it out. Eliza seems to have taken the helm over there."

"Of course she has," agreed Mrs. Fabian sharply. "Taking is Eliza's forte. That china and silver belonged to my grandmother. If Aunt Mary didn't have enough thoughtfulness to leave it to me in writing, is that any reason it should not be mine?"

"Aunt Mary knew," said Kathleen, "that you had everything you wanted."

"Everything I needed, perhaps," retorted Mrs. Fabian, with excitement, "but I certainly want my own grandmother's things; and Providence has thrown them into my hands. I shall explain everything to Philip and he will be glad to have me take them. Isn't he all that I said he was, Kathleen?"