"It's all right, mother Benjamin," she said, with the old ring in her voice.

The subject was not mentioned again. Save for a somewhat closer affection, a tenderer devotion on Isabelle's part, no one would have known that they were facing a separation, which was an agony of dread to the girl. As Mr. Benjamin had said, of his wisdom: "Sorrow strikes so deep at that age."

She took her part in the duties and pleasures of the days. But the Benjamins' loving eyes marked a change. She brought no yeoman's appetite to the table, she had to be urged to eat. The morning often brought her downstairs with dark circles about her eyes.

"Did thee sleep, dear child?"

"Oh, yes, thanks," was the invariable answer.

"She's getting all eyes again," grumbled Mr. Benjamin.

Not until the very last day were the two other girls told of her coming departure. The last days were packed to the brim with duties, so that she might have no leisure to be sad. She put up a plucky fight; not a tear had she shed. But on the last day, when the clear bugle call roused her, she sprang from her bed, and ran to the window. Nature was at her painting again; splashes of red and yellow and russet brown streaked the hills. A sort of delicate mist enfolded them. Was it only a year ago that she had looked at these blessed hills for the first time? Again father Benjamin's salute to the day rang out. She leaned her head against the window, and her body shook with sobs, though no tears came.

When Mr. Benjamin drove up to the door in the wide surrey behind the fat, dappled horses, she kissed the girls smilingly, she clung to Mrs. Benjamin for a long second, then she took her seat beside her friend. She looked up at them, in the doorway, waving their good-byes.

"If I didn't know that I was coming back in two years to stay, I couldn't bear it, mother Benjamin," she called back. Then the fat horses started off briskly, down the road.



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Miss Vantine's School for Girls was probably no better and no worse than schools of its kind. It bestowed a superficial training upon its pupils, with an accent upon the social graces. Its graduates were always easily identified by their English a's, their good diction, their charming manners, and their intensely conventional point of view. Any departure from the Vantine "norm" in the way of investigation or conclusion was discouraged as not nice.

Miss Vantine truly believed in herself as an educator and since her school had held its prestige for thirty years, she had reason to think that other people agreed with her. Her mark on a girl was absolutely guaranteed.

Into this conventional atmosphere Isabelle came from the simple, friendly life of Hill Top; and she found it hateful. It was the spirit rather than the letter which had prevailed in the Benjamin school, but here only the letter counted. The outward forms, correct manners, were emphasized every day; but in the process, the courteous heart was neglected and left out.

The teachers were the custodians of information, and of the law. They bore a perfectly formal relationship to the pupils. Education consisted in pouring facts into the upturned cups—the minds of the pupils. When Isabelle began to question, to dig deeper into the root of things, the why of things—if instead of the usual "Yes, Miss Vantine," or "No, Miss Vantine," she demanded basic reasons—the explanation was always repeated, patiently in the same words, and the lesson went on.

Isabelle's "rough ways" were deplored, and she was reproved every hour in the day. Restraints were imposed on her mind and her body. She was like a healthy, curious young animal, all tied with bonds that she could neither loose nor fight.

As for the girls, there were some old acquaintances among them—Margie Hunter for one. But their talk was of boys, of beaux, and for ever of males! They spent hours conversing about their clothes, or commenting on the manners of their parents and the morals of their parents' friends. They were deeply interested in the discussion of sex, and there were some phases of the subject dwelt upon which would have sent Miss Vantine down to her grave with the shock, could she have heard their talk.

Now the Benjamins had handled the subject of sex hygiene in their school as a vitally important subject. The girls had been led through the study of botany and zoology, to procreation and the sex relation in human society. Mrs. Benjamin had talked the matter out with her girls with fearless frankness. She had encouraged their questions, she had touched on the pathology of sex, and she had made for them a high ideal of motherhood.

Isabelle realized that the talk of these girls was false and ugly. She said so; and the result was that she was excluded from the intimacy of the leading group. In her letters to Mrs. Benjamin she poured out her whole heart. Protest, misery, loneliness; Mrs. Benjamin sensed them all in the poignant letters the girl sent her. She replied with long, intimate chapters of encouragement and understanding. It was her counsel which kept Isabelle going the first six months of this experience.

She tried with all her might to carry into her daily life the ideals taught and lived at Hill Top. But she seemed to be speaking a language that nobody understood. Her teachers bored her. She found she could keep ahead in her classes with only the most perfunctory study, so the ideal of a high standard for work was the first to go. What was the use? There was not enough to occupy her, so the old restlessness came upon her, with mischievous uses for her excess vitality. She gained a reputation as a law breaker, and she was watched and punished with increasing frequency. Her old leadership in misbehaviour was once more established. The precocious cynicism of her associates began to impress her as clever. She outdid them at it. Mrs. Benjamin's friendship was her only hope of salvation now. And then, in January, after a brief spell of pneumonia, dear Mrs. Benjamin left the world she had so graced, leaving an aching vacancy behind for her husband and her friends.

To Isabelle it came as her first real sorrow. For weeks after, the girl retired into herself as into a locked room. She could not eat; she did not sleep; she grew thin, and haggard, and pale. Worse than that; in her rebellion at this loss, she grew bitter. She threw this suffering at the feet of God with a threat. She felt herself the victim of eternal injustice. Just as she achieved happiness, or friendship, it was always snatched from her. Always, before, Max had cheated her of things; now it was God.

She came out of it the Isabelle of her early childhood—revoltee, enemy to authority, defier of God and the universe. Her wit against them all. She would take what she wanted now, and let them look out for her!

* * * * *

From that time on, she was the acknowledged school "terror." She put her entire mind upon misbehaving, and she was as ingenious as a monkey. Never a week passed that she was not shut up for an hour in the library with Miss Vantine, who always felt, poor lady, that she was dealing with a manifestation of the devil.

"Did you, or did you not throw an electric lamp on the floor during the algebra lesson, Isabelle?"

"I dropped one on the floor."

"Don't equivocate! You threw it"—sternly.

"All right; I threw it"—defiantly.

"Why did you do it?"

"To wake up the class. If you knew how dull that hour is you wouldn't blame me."

"Don't be impertinent!"

"Miss Marshall is a fool. If you ask her a question outside the lesson she has to look it up in the book."

"You are not here to criticize your teachers, you are here to account for your misbehaviour."

"I am telling you why I misbehave. I can't listen to her. Nobody does. She sets us all wild. Everybody was half asleep so I bounced the lamp on the floor. She ought to have been grateful to me for getting their attention."

"This is the second time this week that you have been reported for insubordination. This conduct cannot continue. I am writing your parents to-day that unless you mend your ways, they must take you away from here. You are contaminating the entire school."

"They can't take me away too quickly."

Miss Vantine thought best to ignore this impertinence.

"You will take twenty demerits, and miss your walk in the park for a week. You may go now."

The girl sauntered insolently out of the room, leaving Miss Vantine white with rage. She wrote a very firm letter to Mrs. Walter Bryce, who in turn wrote a denunciatory letter to her daughter, and there the matter rested.

One disgrace followed another, and finally the school year dragged to a close. Isabelle went to The Beeches for the summer. There were four months of war to the knife with her mother, the usual number of scrapes, and a violent love affair with Herbert Hunter, home from St. George's.

"What became of your reformed character?" inquired Wally one day. "I thought the Benjamins had made a human being of you."

"They nearly did. But Max dragged me off and sent me to that fool Vantine, and I got over being human. What's the use?"

The Bryces were glad when fall came and she was sent back to the school. As for Isabelle she did not much care where she went. There was a certain satisfaction—an esprit de diablerie—which amused her. Sharp of tongue and of wit, she knew she had a real gift for making herself a nuisance, and she took pride in it.

Miss Vantine warned her at the beginning of the term that she was a marked character, and that unless she behaved herself she could not stay. She tempered her behaviour somewhat during the first term, but it was no use. Like every dog with a bad name, all the mischief in the school was attributed to her. According to schoolgirl canons of loyalty it was an unforgivable sin to tell tales or "give people away," so Isabelle shouldered the iniquity of the whole school. The teachers hated and feared her.

Miss Vantine bore with her like a martyr—for two reasons. One was that she liked Mrs. Bryce, who had been her pupil; and the other was that she had never yet expelled a girl, and she disliked the idea intensely.

But there came a day in early February of Isabelle's second year of residence when the end was reached. Herbert Hunter had smuggled a note to her that he was coming to New York to have his tonsils out and he wanted to see her before he went to the hospital. She answered by special delivery and agreed to meet him on Sunday, in the Park. When the girls were entering church on that day, Isabelle was taken with a violent fit of coughing, and was left in the vestibule to quiet herself. She fled to her tryst. But she miscalculated the length of the sermon, and met the school coming out, on the church steps. She was questioned, led home in disgrace. She was accused of truancy; she admitted it, even confessed her rendezvous in the Park.

Miss Vantine had to act this time. She sent a final letter to the Bryces with a sentence of suspension for their daughter, who was packed off home at once, in disgrace. Mrs. Bryce was furious because she and Wally were going off with the Abercrombie Brendons on their yacht. She explained their dilemma to their hostess and she was decent enough to include the girl, but it was a nuisance to have her along.

No time was lost in letting Isabelle feel her disgrace. After a perfunctory greeting, her mother remarked:

"You've made a nice record for yourself, haven't you?"

Isabelle made no reply.

"Why don't you answer me?"

"Foolish question, Number One. Yes, I have made a nice record for myself."

"If you make yourself a nuisance around here, I shall find a way to punish you," she threatened her.

"Go ahead. Get it all off your chest at once and then drop it."

Mrs. Bryce decided upon injured dignity, as her best role.

"Where's Wally?" demanded Isabelle.

"I don't know."

"What's doing around here? I expect to enjoy myself on this little vacation. I hope you don't intend to be too disagreeable."

Later at dinner Wally remarked to his wife—

"Tell her about the trip?"

"No."

"What trip?" demanded their daughter.

"We are going off on the Abercrombie Brendons' yacht, and your unfortunate return has forced Mrs. Brendon to include you in the party."

"I hope you said 'No, thanks' for me."

"We said 'yes' for you," replied Wally.

"But I won't go. Shut up on a boat with you two and the Brendons? Not much."

"You're not being consulted," remarked her mother, coolly.

"You'll have to drag me aboard."

Mrs. Bryce's temper flared.

"You will walk aboard and you will behave like a decent individual while we are on this cruise, or there will be the most serious consequences you have ever met yet. Nobody wants you on this party, you understand, and the less conspicuous you make yourself, the better."

Isabelle beamed upon them.

"Thank you so much for your charming invitation, my dear, doting parents. I accept with pleasure, and I think I can promise you that your little outing will be a complete success, so far as I am concerned."

She laughed lightly, and Mr. and Mrs. Bryce exchanged uneasy glances. Something in that laugh did not promise well for their holiday.



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The motor boat from the Empress was at the pier when the three Bryces made their appearance on the day of the departure. They were taken out to the yacht at once, where Mr. Abercrombie Brendon was already ensconced. He was a pompous, red-faced little man, with a great deal of stomach and a great deal of manner. He was in high good humour with the weather and the world in general. He greeted Isabelle by singing, a line from a light opera success of his younger days—

"Isabella, Isabella, the love-e-ly queen of Spain."

"Silly ass!" said she to herself, and she went to lean over the rail and watch for the coming of the others. They arrived shortly and she took inventory. First Mrs. Abercrombie Brendon ascended the steps. She was a big, arrogant, impressive woman whom Isabelle immediately named "Hecuba." She was followed by a lovely, blonde creature, with deep-blue eyes and a short upper lip.

Isabelle fixed her attention upon the last comer, who certainly was an attention-fixing young man. He was extremely handsome. Here was the one and only hope of this party, so far as she was concerned.

There was a great clatter of greetings.

"Come here, Isabelle, and make your manners," ordered her mother. She obeyed, reluctantly.

"So glad to have a young thing with us, my dear," boomed Mrs. Brendon in her big voice. "Althea, this is Isabelle Bryce. Miss Morton, Isabelle."

The lovely vision smiled faintly and nodded.

"This is Mr. Jerry Paxton," Mrs. Brendon continued.

Isabelle shot a glance at him, but he failed to get it.

"How do you do?" he said, absently, turning to help Althea adjust her veil.

There followed the ceremony of apportioning the staterooms, getting into deck hats, and the other preliminaries, while the boat was steaming down the harbour. Isabelle stayed on deck and made friends with the captain and the sailors. It was fun to watch them padding about so swiftly, coiling ropes, and doing their tasks so featly.

The first few days were clear and beautiful. They spent the time on deck. Isabelle appraised the situation the first day out. Mrs. Brendon intended that the handsome Paxton man should be permanently annexed to the blonde beauty, who entirely concurred in the idea. The Paxton man was not yet entirely won over to the plan; therefore, he was restless and on his guard. Max flirted with old Brendon, and Wally was at loose ends. He occasionally donated his society to his daughter.

"I'll make a bet with you, Wally, that Madame Hecuba Brendon won't put it through."

"Put what through?"

"Marry Jerry Paxton to the lady with the short lip."

Wally laughed.

"You don't miss anything, do you?"

"I do not."

"You're too young to notice such things."

"Lord! but parents are a bore!" quoth Isabelle at that.

For the most part she kept out of their way those first days. Max noticed it, and warned Wally that she was probably cooking up some mischief to explode on them.

It would have surprised them could they have peeped into the girl's mind. She liked being alone, being still. There had been considerable strain to keeping up a reputation as a school terror. It had meant being constantly on the alert for an opportunity to misbehave; it meant thinking up plots, living up to an exacting standard of wickedness. The reaction had come with these idle days and she enjoyed it.

Then, too, she loved the vastness of the sea and the sky, between which they made their way. She sat for hours watching white gulls that followed in their wake. She wondered if they were not the souls of the departed, and she conceived one friendly one, which flew quite near them for days, to be the soul of Mrs. Benjamin. Sometimes when she was sure that no one was near she stood in the stern and called out to it.

"Dear Mrs. Benjamin, I know you're there. Don't leave me, will you? I love so to watch you circling up there. Is it nice in Heaven?"

She pondered about death a good deal, and about heaven. She had not been able to bear such thoughts since Mrs. Benjamin died, so bitter had been her grief. But there was soothing in the silent vastness, and she came to think of heaven as a sublimated Hill Top with Mrs. Benjamin still teaching the young.

She watched Jerry and Althea pacing the deck together. She noted the way she looked at him—the half-playful wholly tender way she appropriated him. It led the girl to ponder upon love also. Here were two beautiful people who, according to all the rules of play and story, should be making love every minute, in this paradise. Why did the beautiful young man hesitate?



She decided to interview Althea and see what sort of creature she might be. It was not so simple, because Althea was barely aware of Isabelle's existence, also she was never without Jerry at her side, if either she or Mrs. Brendon could manage it. But there came a chance, when she was alone on deck, and Isabelle hastily took the vacated seat beside her. Althea glanced at her, faintly surprised.

"Are you having a good time on this cruise?" Isabelle opened fire.

"Oh, yes—very. Aren't you?"

"Not especially. But then I haven't any handsome young man to play with."

Althea frowned and made her first mistake.

"You're quite too young for any such ideas," she said.

"I'm out of the cradle, you know!"—hotly. "I'm old enough to know that I could handle a handsome young man better than you do, for all your age."

"I think you're extremely impertinent!"

"You ought to make a friend of me. I can tell you a thing or two. For one thing, he's too sure of you."

Althea rose, white with fury.

"I shall certainly report this impudence to your mother," she said, haughtily, moving away. But Isabelle fired the last shot.

"Oh, Max will agree with me. You ought to watch her. She's got some technique herself."

After that encounter Althea looked over and through Isabelle, as if she were thin air. It amused the girl immensely, and in her wise head she made a fair judgment of Miss Morton's mind and disposition. She decided that she was entirely unworthy of the god-like Jerry, and she was glad he hesitated.

She began to watch him with increased interest. She made romances about him, with herself as heroine. She played scenes in which she outwitted the haughty beauty, and fled with the hero. She began to pity Jerry. He was the unwilling victim of Althea and Mrs. Brendon. How could she, Isabelle Bryce, rescue him from their clutches?

In the process of her dreaming she wrecked the yacht, Jerry saved her, and as soon as they reached shore they were married. In one version, Althea, seeing that he loved Isabelle, threw herself overboard and perished. There were many stories, but they always had one ending—Isabelle won and wed the handsome young man.

One windy morning when the other "stuffies" (as she called them to herself) were playing bridge inside, Isabelle squatted on deck, her chin on her knees, watching the big breakers, listening to the scream of the petrels, and as usual building air castles about herself and Jerry, when lo! her hero came striding down the deck and all at once he stopped before her.

"Hello! Aren't you afraid you'll blow overboard?" he inquired.

"No, I'm not. You've waked up, have you?"

"Have I been asleep?"

"You haven't seen me before," she retorted.

"Well, I see you now. Do you know what you look like?" He smiled down at her.

"Yes. I look like a ripe olive."

"No, you look like a cricket. Are you always so silent? Don't you ever chirp?"

"Me, silent? I've given the Wallys the blow of their lives. They think I'm sick, I've been so good on this rotten cruise."

"What caused the reform—good company?"

"No, I'm getting ready to break it to them, that I may not be taken back at that school. I got into the devil of a row."

"Did you? And they expelled you?"

"Suspended me, until they decide. That's why I had to come on this jolly party."

"You don't like it?"

"Of course, I don't like it. How'd I know whether you'd wake up or not?"

"Did you want me to wake up?" he asked, curiously.

"But, oui, aye, ja, yes, of course. You don't suppose I want to play with fat old Brendon, do you? Wally is a fearful bore, so there is only you."

"Poor little cricket, she wanted a playmate," he teased.

"She did. I can't rub my knees together and make a 'crick,' you know, so I had to wait until you came to. I'd have pushed you overboard if it hadn't happened to-day. I'm so full of unused pep, I'm ready to pop!"

"Come on. I'm awake. Now what?"

"Let's warm up," she said, and was up and off down the deck in one spring. Jerry pursued. She raced around the whole deck twice, then waited for him to catch up with her.

"Puffing, Jerry? You're getting fat," she jeered.

"You impudent little beggar, I'd like to shake you."

"Try it!"

This might have been called Isabelle's entrance on the scene, because from that moment on, she took the stage and exerted herself to hold it. She tantalized Jerry every minute. She took all the privileges of youthful sixteen, and made frank, outspoken love to him. She never left him alone with Althea for a moment. She roused in the breast of that blonde young woman such a fierce hatred that murder would have been a mild expression of her desires.

Even Mrs. Abercrombie Brendon took a hand, trying first hauteur and disapproval, descending finally to bribery and entreaty. Max and Wally laboured with their offspring. She only turned big eyes upon them and entreated them to tell her what displeased them. She was trying to be a credit to them, to save them all from complete dissolution through the boredom that had settled down upon them like a cloud.

"You let Jerry Paxton alone," ordered her mother.

"But he adores me, and he is so bored."

"Conceited jackanapes!" said Mrs. Bryce.

"He'd jump overboard if it wasn't for me. I'm his only salvation from the wax doll."

Wally laughed and the fight was lost. Mrs. Brendon ordered the captain to Palm Beach at once, all steam on. As soon as they landed Jerry prepared for flight. He produced a fictitious telegram calling him at once to New York.

"Jerry, how can you leave me, in the house of the enemy?" Isabelle demanded, when she got him alone.

"Hard lines, kid, but I'm off," he laughed.

"If you loved me you'd take me too."

"You're crazy!"

"But you like me crazy, Jerry."

He grinned and made no reply.

But Isabelle had seen a way. She asked Wally for some money to buy a souvenir. The treasure she bought was a ticket to New York on the night train. When she was ordered to bed because she was too young for hotel hops, she bade Jerry farewell, and went off without protest. From that moment on, she worked fast. She pinned a note to Max's pincushion, in the most approved fashion. She packed a bag, took a cab to the station, went to bed, and what is more, to sleep, in the calm satisfaction, that the story was to have a happy ending!



CHAPTER NINETEEN

The romantic adventure of running off with Jerry proved a dismal failure. She had failed to study the psychology of her particeps criminis in the fascination of analyzing her own. Far from being pleased with her company, he was greatly annoyed thereat. He wired her father the facts, begged him to follow to Jacksonville and take her off his hands. When Wally stepped from under, as it were, directing Jerry to hand the pest over to a teacher in New York, the young man's irritation became excessive and he was at no trouble to conceal it.

Isabelle confessed that she had informed her mother "in a pin-cushion note" that she had eloped with Jerry. She pointed out to him that, after this public announcement of her intentions, it would be necessary for him to marry her, "to save her honour" as she phrased it. He laughed, brutally. He inquired her age, and when she boasted that she was "going on seventeen"—that many girls were "wooed and married and a'," by that time—he laughed again.

When, however, she persisted in the idea, and declared her love for him, he talked to her like a disagreeable elder brother, casting reflections upon her breeding and her manners. He told her that she was a silly little thing, that she did not amuse him in the least, and that it was high time she began to conduct herself like a lady. He began to address her, coldly, as Miss Bryce.

She appealed to him, coquetted with him, abused him; all to no effect. He remained formal and distant during the entire journey. She was deeply hurt and humiliated by his actions, but on the whole she got considerable satisfaction out of the role of blighted being.

They both concentrated upon the end of the trip. Jerry longed to be rid of his unwelcome responsibility, and Isabelle was interested because she had arranged a coup for the moment.

Wally had assured Jerry, by wire, that a teacher from the school would meet Isabelle at the station. Isabelle, in the meantime, had wired Miss Vantine that a change of plans made it unnecessary for the teacher to meet the train. She signed the telegram with her father's name. She awaited the moment when Jerry realized that he was not to be rid of her, with considerable excitement.

Arrived in New York at ten o'clock, she preserved a demure silence while he stormed up and down the station looking for the teacher. He was finally convinced that there was no one to meet them.

"What are you going to do with me?" she asked.

"Come along," he replied, ungraciously, bundling her into a cab.

They went to a studio building and Jerry pounded on somebody's door for ten minutes, in vain. Then he tried another.

"None of your friends care to see us, Jerry," grinned Isabelle. Finally he unlocked a door and turned on a light.

"This is your place, Jerry," she cried; and she began a swift inspection.

"You can turn in here for the night, and in the morning I will take you to the school."

"Where will you sleep?"

"At a club."

"And leave me in this spooky place alone? I won't stay."

"Don't you see that I cannot take you around town at this hour of the night looking for lodgings?"

"I'll go in the bedroom, and you can sleep on the couch. I won't stay here alone."

Eventually he telephoned a friend of his, named Miss Jane Judd. He invited her to stay with Isabelle. He even went and brought her and explained to her that he would call for Isabelle in the morning.

"Oh, Jerry, don't leave me," cried Isabelle, clinging to him. "I don't want to stay with this strange woman. I want to go with you—always, Jerry—because I love you so. Won't you take me, Jerry?"

"Don't be a little goose, Isabelle."

"Please don't hate me, Jerry," she sobbed.

"I don't hate you when you're sensible."

"Won't you call me Cr-Cricket, just once, Jerry?"

"If you'll be a good girl and go to bed."

"Kiss me good-night."

"I'll do nothing of the kind. Miss Judd, take charge of this crazy kid. I'll be back in the morning," he said, desperately, as he escaped.

Isabelle wept, more from weariness and chagrin than anything else, but a sort of amused patience on Miss Judd's part caused her to cut short any histrionic display. As they prepared for bed she began to regale Miss Judd with spicy descriptions of the yachting party. Jane Judd laughed heartily.

"You're very naughty, but you are funny," she said to the girl.

"I don't suppose Mrs. Brendon and Althea think I'm funny. Poor old baby-doll Althea! She must be furious. She was so sure of Jerry."

"You hop into bed and forget all about Altheas and Jerrys. Sleep is what you need," said Miss Judd, putting out the light.

But the flow of Isabelle's talk was not to be stayed. She was excited and keyed up high. There was a simplicity and directness about this Judd woman that made her think of Mrs. Benjamin, so she told all about Hill Top and her life there, her love of it, her despair at Mrs. Benjamin's death.

Jane Judd listened with patience and understanding. Here was laid out before her the bared heart of the "poor little rich girl." She pieced the bits together until she had the whole picture of this odd, unnatural, hothouse child—antagonistic to her parents, to her school, yet full of feeling, and coming into the age when the emotions play such havoc. No wonder she had settled her youthful affections upon Jerry. He was so preeminently the type one loves at sixteen, Jane smiled to herself.

"Do you think he will marry me?"

"I doubt it."

"Don't you think he loves me?"

"Lots of other women are in love with Mr. Paxton, too," said Jane.

"You just say that to scare me!" cried Isabelle.

So the self-revelation of this young egotist went on and on until sleep laid a finger on her lips.

Long after she was silent the older woman lay awake, and thought about her, about the conditions in our world that produced her. She was so sorry for the child, even while she laughed at the memory of Jerry's furious embarrassment, at the mercy of her jejune affections.

* * * * *

Jerry arrived early, and Jane and Isabelle parted like old friends.

"Miss Judd is very understanding," remarked Isabelle, en route to the school.

"Yes, isn't she?"

"She's not at all snippy like so many people. It's ridiculous to act as if it were so clever just to be grown up. It isn't clever; it's only luck."

"The luck lies in being young, Isabelle."

"Can't you even remember how you hated being squelched by elders?" she inquired.

"Do they ever squelch you, Cricket?"

"You ought to know. You've done enough of it."

"Let's make a new compact. Let's be good pals," he said, heartily.

"I do not want your friendship," she answered, coldly.

"O good Lord, you wretched baby!"—irritably.

"It is all right, Jerry. I see that it can never be, but I shall always care for you deeply," she said with nobility.

When they came to the school Jerry left her with a deep sigh of relief. She certainly was too much for him. He was no longer surprised that Max and Wally avoided the problem.

* * * * *

There certainly was no fatted calf killed for the return of the prodigal in Miss Vantine's school. At her reappearance an air of chastened endurance settled upon all the teachers from Miss Vantine down to the elocution teacher. But their fears were doomed to disappointment, because Isabelle was for the time being absorbed in her unrequited love affair.

She walked through her lessons like one in a trance; she devoted all her leisure, and some of her study hours, to a series of daily letters to the object of her passion. Most of these raptures were never to meet his eye, but they furnished an outlet for the girl's over-full heart, and to the psychologist they would have proved interesting. To her schoolmates she was, as ever, an enigma.

"What is the matter with you, Isabelle? Trying to get one hundred in deportment?" they teased her.

"I have larger things to think of, than deportment," she answered, airily.

"She's in love again," scoffed Margie Hunter.

This was greeted with a deep sigh.

"Who is he, Isabelle?" they demanded.

"He is a great artist whose name is sacred to me."

"Do you know him?"

"Intimately."

"And does he care for you?"

"I cannot betray his confidence"—nobly.

"Is he handsome?"

"He is wonderful."

"Not so handsome as Shelley Hull, or Jack Barrymore," they protested.

"Oh, heaps handsomer!"

"Do have him come here. Couldn't we ask Miss Vantine to get him to lecture on art?"

"He hasn't time. He goes from function to function. Many women love him, he's a great social favourite," boasted Isabelle.

This distinction set her apart as never before. She went among them as one baptized with greatness. When in the course of their daily walks with a teacher, they encountered a personable young man, Isabelle's eyes would never swerve in his direction. When there were midnight spreads, Isabelle did not care for food, or she had her letter to write.

"Isabelle, will you marry him as soon as you graduate from here?" Margie inquired.

"Oh, no. I expect to spend years at work in the arts before I am worthy of him."

"What arts?"

"It is not decided. I may paint, or sing, or act."

"But you haven't any talent for painting or singing."

"You never can tell, Margie. I've had no chance ta show what I can do. Besides, I can act."

"I think you're too plain to go on the stage, myself," was the withering reply, but it did not wither Isabelle.

"Beauty, my dear, is nothing; Art is everything," was her unassailable reply.

So upon the wings of romance Isabelle floated through the spring term. She was to spend the summer at an inn in the mountains, as The Beeches was not to be opened. Her parents and teachers, encouraged by three months of good behaviour, believed that a permanent change of heart had taken place in the girl. On the day of her departure, Miss Vantine congratulated her upon her improvement, and alluded to the coming year as the crown of her achievements. Isabelle smiled politely, for she had thoroughly decided in her own mind that this was her farewell to school.



CHAPTER TWENTY

If Max and Wally had ever shown one grain of intelligence in regard to Isabelle they never would have taken her to this big, fashionable mountain inn where her field of adventure was so greatly enlarged. But they never had shown any discrimination in regard to her, so nothing could be expected of them at this stage.

Isabelle was a marked figure wherever she went now. She had forcibly taken over the matter of her own wardrobe in the spring of this year. Max had never made a success of it because she never gave any study to the girl's points; she dismissed her as plain, and bought her things with indifference.

Now Isabelle had a flair for the odd, and she understood her own limitations and her own style. She was small, and slim as a reed, without being bony. She had what she called "hair-coloured" hair, and an odd face—wide between the eyes, but a perfect oval in shape. Her eyes were her only beauty.

Fluffy, young-girl clothes merely accentuated her lack of youthful prettiness. With unerring instinct as a child, she had chosen her riding clothes to show off in. Now these same clothes formed the basis of her system. By day she was always in tailored frocks of the strictest simplicity. They were linen, or silk, or wool, made after the same model. Slim, tight skirt; slim, fitted coat; sailor hat, and strange boots, which she had made to order after her own design. They were like short riding boots, pulled on and crumpled over the instep like a glove. She was striking, chic, a personality.

"By Jove! Isabelle gets herself up smartly, Max," commented Wally, soon after their arrival at the inn. Their daughter walked toward them, with every eye on the long piazza following in her wake.

"It is too outree, but it is effective. She knows everybody looks at her, she intends they shall, but look how the monkey carries it off," laughed Max, struck into a sort of admiration.

"What's doing with you to-day, my noble parents?"

"Oh, I don't know. What are you doing?" Wally answered.

"I'm going to ride. I can't stand this clack-clatter," she said, indicating the groups on the veranda. "Dull lot, don't you think?"

"Have you met any one yet?" inquired her mother.

"Don't have to. I know what they are by just looking at them."

"L'enfant prodige!" jeered Max.

A tall, very fine-looking man in riding togs passed them, with a swift look at Isabelle.

"That's Cartel, isn't it?" Wally asked.

"The actor man?" said Max, looking after him.

"Actor-manager he calls himself now. Good-looking brute, isn't he?" answered Wally, idly.

Isabelle seemed oblivious to the whole incident but privately she marked Sidney Cartel as her own. She went off, shortly, to change.

"Why don't you ride with her, Wally? She oughtn't to go off around these mountains alone."

"Too hot. She can take care of herself."

"Which way did Mr. Cartel go?" Isabelle inquired of the stable groom who mounted her.

"Sunrise Trail, Miss," he answered.

Isabelle started off for Sunrise Trail, with the directness of purpose which marked all her actions. It was some time before she caught sight of him, and to her annoyance she saw he was with a party of friends. Whenever the trail permitted he rode beside a certain woman—leaning toward her with marked devotion. Isabelle brought up the rear of the procession. The others became aware of her, evidently commented on her. Mr. Cartel looked back frequently.

When Isabelle came to a place wide enough to turn she retraced her steps. She went back to the inn determined to discover who Mr. Cartel's special companion was. The groom furnished it, for a price:

"Mrs. Andrews was with him, Miss. She mostly is."

Saturday night was the weekly hop, the most festive occasion of the week. Max had given Isabelle orders that she could not sit up for dances, as she was still a schoolgirl. The girl made no protest.

"Hops don't interest me," she said, indifferently.

After dinner she took a few turns on the piazza with Wally before she went to bed. She wore an odd, white crepe frock, which hung very close. Her hair was bound round her head like a cap.

"Let's sneak in and have the first dance together," said Wally; "Max has a beau."

"All right; then I'll skip," agreed Isabelle.

With the first strains of music they swung into a waltz. They danced well, and enjoyed it.

"Go to bed," ordered Max as she passed them.

Isabelle saw Mr. Cartel idly glance in, then at sight of her he came to the door and watched them.

"Some dance, Miss Bryce. Much obliged. Sorry you have to leave us," said Wally as the dance was over.

Cartel strolled off down the hall, and a few seconds later she followed him. She saw him saunter into one of the many little rooms used for cards, or tea. She noticed it was not lighted and, on the impulse of the moment, she stepped in after him.

In a second she was caught and lifted in strong arms. She was kissed again and again, while he said laughingly:

"You little devil, you came after all."

"I wonder who you are," said Isabelle sweetly, "and who you think I am."

"Thunder!" said Mr. Cartel, holding her off, and trying to peer at her.

"There must be some mistake," Isabelle suggested. "I will ask you to stand just where you are, until I have time to get into the elevator. That will save us both any embarrassment."

"But I don't understand," he mumbled. "I do beg your pardon, I thought——"

"Give me three minutes; and I rely on you not to peep into the hall," she said, with a chuckle. And was gone, leaving the actor-manager more at a loss than such events usually found him.

Now whether Mr. Cartel peeped or not, the next day he recalled a previous meeting with Wally, and asked to be presented to his daughter.

"Haven't we met before, Miss Bryce?" he asked, giving her a very special look.

"No," she replied, with the faintest suspicion of a taunt in her tone.

"I was under the impression that we had."

"I'm sure I couldn't forget."

"Are you enjoying yourself here?"

"Not especially."

"What do you enjoy, Miss Bryce?"

"Excitement."

"Couldn't we find you some?"

"You might," with the slightest accent on the pronoun.

"Let's try," he countered.

* * * * *

From that moment he devoted himself to the "little Bryce girl." He rode with her, walked with her, talked with her, roared with amusement over her diablerie, until all tongues clacked about it. Mrs. Andrews left, in a huff.

"You've got to stop it, Wally," Max ordered. "Every one is talking."

"How can I stop it? You never should have brought her here."

"Well, I'm not going to leave because she makes a fool of herself, so you can just take a hand."

About this time a group of enthusiasts decided to get up an entertainment. With fear and trembling they asked the great actor to take part.

"How would you like to act a play with me, Cricket?" he asked her, in the tone of a god condescending to mortal.

"It would amuse me," she replied.

He laughed.

"This to the great Cartel!" said he, modestly. "Do you know that the finest actresses in America esteem it a privilege to act with me?"

She grinned.

"There are women in this hotel who would give their eyes for the chance," he added.

"I need my eyes for seeing my way about," she drawled.

Well as she managed him she was greatly excited at the prospect of acting with him. She had a dreadful row with Max and Wally on the subject, but she won out, and the announcement was made that the great man would put on a Shaw playlet, assisted by the "little Bryce girl."

There followed days of rehearsal and preparation, during which Mr. Cartel tried to impress his amateur leading lady, and succeeded not at all.

"That's not the way to do it!" he thundered at her repeatedly.

"All right. But that's the way I have to do it. If I'm going to be this woman, I have to be her my way, not yours."

So the impudent little baggage faced him out, on his own ground; and he was forced to admit to himself that, crude as she was, she managed effects.

"You might be able to act some day," he said to her on an occasion.

"Give me a job, and let me try."

"You mean it?"

"Certainly."

"But your parents?"

"They'd howl—and give in. They always do."

"H'm—well, we'll see."

* * * * *

The great night came. Needless to say that the Shaw playlet and the brilliant Cartel were the events of the occasion. Isabelle was by no means obliterated in his shadow. She made a very considerable impression. There was a sort of fire about her. Her lines were read, not recited; and Shaw is the acid test for the amateur. The performance received an ovation.

"You were quite interesting," Cartel said, sparingly—inspecting her with half-closed, speculative eyes.

"Do I get my job?" she inquired.

Later, he spoke to her parents about her talent.

"For goodness' sake, don't tell her," urged her mother.

"You wouldn't let me take her for a season?" he inquired.

"I should say not!" replied Mrs. Bryce, with emphasis.

The fuss that was made over the girl was enough to turn her head completely.

"We've got to take her away, that's all," said Wally, a day or two later.

"Where?" inquired Max, irritated to brevity.

"I don't know. She gets into trouble wherever she goes. We might open The Beeches."

"Well, we won't."

In the meantime Isabelle asked Cartel daily about a job in his company.

"Nothing doing without your parents' consent."

"If I make them consent, do I get it?"

"Possibly; but they won't," he teased her.

"You don't know me," she warned him.

The end of August came, and with it the great man's departure, for rehearsals in town. Isabelle was desolated. Her god, her idol, was leaving her behind, and only because of those eternal drawbacks—her parents. She said her farewell to him demurely, and echoed his hope that they would meet soon in town.

"You've made my summer for me, little witch," he said, in an aside.



He left. There passed three days of utter misery and boredom. Wally went to New York on business, and refused to take her along; Max was cross; the devil of revolt entered Isabelle.

She wired Cartel:

Terrible row. Disinherited by parents. Will apply at theatre to-morrow, at ten, for promised job. ISABELLE.

She sneaked two dress-suit cases on to the hotel baggage 'bus, and she took a morning train to New York. Arrived there she wired Max:

Am going on stage. Useless to try to stop me. Am determined on a career. ISABELLE.

Max received this message at tea time, as she sat with a group of merry idlers on the piazza. She read it—frowned. With an exclamation of annoyance she summoned a boy, and wrote as follows to Wally:

Isabelle has joined Cartel. Catch her and bring her back. MAX.

"Is anything wrong, dear Max?" inquired her best beau, noting her expression.

"Yes," she replied, "but it's chronic in our family!"



CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Isabelle went directly to their town house and demanded a bed of the caretaker, who was an old family servant. At ten in the morning she presented herself at the stage door of the New York Theatre, and sent in a card to Mr. Cartel. Word came out that he had not arrived. She was not permitted to go in, and to her great indignation she had to march up and down the alley for an hour until the great one came.

At sight of him she felt that all her troubles were at an end. She hurried forward with a confident smile, as he stepped from his motor. No gleam of delight at the sight of her overspread his features, however. He saw her; he bowed.

"Ah—I got your message," he said, absently. "I don't think that there is anything for you."

"There's got to be something for me," said Isabelle with promptness and vigour. "You let me desert my family for a career, and you've got to help me."

"But, my dear girl, I urged you not to break with your family, you know."

"It's too late to talk about that. Here I am. Now, what are you going to do about it?"

"Well, come in," he said, curtly; and they went into the theatre.

It was Isabelle's first view of the hindside of the mysteries. It was a hot day, and rehearsal was in progress. A group of people sat listlessly about the stage, on kitchen chairs, while a man in a neglige shirt and no coat urged them to get a little "pep" into the scene "for the love of God!" Cartel's arrival caused a ripple. All the actors sat up, as if electrified. The stage manager advanced at once to speak with him. He glanced at Isabelle, but Cartel made no move to introduce them. In fact he seemed to have forgotten about her. He issued brief orders, asked a few questions, turned to go. Then, as if on an afterthought, he added:

"By the way, Jenkins, this is Miss Isabelle Bryce. Try her out in the maid's part, will you?"

Mr. Jenkins nodded to Isabelle, who was furious at her hero for this casual treatment of her career.

"Come over here," ordered Jenkins, indicating a chair and offering her a script. "Read 'Mary,'" he added, briefly, and went on with the rehearsal.

Isabelle was dazed. It was so different from her idea of it. She had supposed Cartel would introduce her to the company and the manager as a genius he had discovered this summer. She thought she would be made much of, as his protegee. Instead of which she was set upon a kitchen chair, like a strange kitten, and told to read "Mary." Nobody paid any attention to her. They did not even look at her. They went on, indifferently, reading their parts, moving here and there on orders from Jenkins. Suddenly her name was rapped out:

"Your cue, Miss Bryce."

She fumbled her script, blushed furiously, found the place, and read stupidly, beginning with the cue.

" . . . Where is she? Mrs. Horton telephoned she would be here at five, sir."

"Well, get up," ordered Jenkins, testily. "You enter R., upper door. Come front and answer Horton, who stands L. C. Then you exit L., up stage."

They all looked at her now. She felt their impatience, their supercilious smiles. She knew she was that leper in the theatre—an amateur. She did not know what Jenkins was talking about with his down R's, and his up L's. He entered as Mary and showed her the business. She caught the idea at once, and he grunted something which might have been approval or a curse. The rest of the time she spent in fevered attention to the script, looking for the signal, "Mary," but it came no more in that act. They went all over it again, and she managed it without a hitch. Then they were dismissed until two o'clock, and every one hurried off for lunch.

Isabelle waited, thinking that of course Cartel would ask her to lunch with him. But there were no signs of him. She inquired where his office was, and ascended the stairs with the intention of expressing her dissatisfaction with her part. She stopped outside the door at the sound of voices—Cartel's and Wally's. She went in.

"Well!" exploded her father, "so there you are!"

"Good morning, Wally. Max wired you?"

"She did. You will come home with me at once."

"There is no need of our boring Mr. Cartel with our family rows," she said, sweetly. "I have no intention of going anywhere with you. I've decided upon a stage career, and I'm rehearsing with Mr. Cartel now."

The manager stifled a smile.

"You're not of age, young woman, and you can be made to do things!" said Wally.

"Take it to law, you mean? Jail and all that? Public announcement that you and Max can't manage me? Stupid, Wally, very stupid."

"You're not through with your education. It will be time enough to decide on a career when you finish school."

"I have finished school. That I am determined upon. You may as well face it, Wally. I am on the stage, and I intend to stay on it."

"Look here, Bryce, take a word of advice from me. I meet this every day. Girls get this germ, and my experience is that it's better to let the disease run its course. If you force her to go back to school, she has a grievance for life. If she goes back of her own accord, she's cured."

"It's ridiculous! We'd be the laughing stock of the town!"

"Oh, no; it happens in the best families. Believe me, it is not such bad training for young women who have never been disciplined—like your daughter. She'll get it, in this business. She'll learn to obey orders and to respect authority."

"But she's struck on herself now, and if she goes on the stage——"

"Don't bother; we'll take that out of her," remarked Cartel.

Wally looked from Isabelle's set face to the manager's smiling one.

"What is your idea?" he asked.

"Let her try it. Let her live at home. Send her back and forth in your car; protect her, of course. But let her have her fling; it won't take long," said Cartel, with a wise nod at Wally.

"Try it, Wally, just give me a chance," cried the near actress.

"Your mother will raise the roof!" he began.

"She'll come round, if you back me up."

"I don't know," he said, miserably.

Isabelle flew at him and hugged him wildly.

"Oh, Wally, you're a dear," she cried, thus committing him to partnership.

"We needn't treat Cartel to our family reconciliations," he said.

"Come take me to lunch, then. I have to be back at two. That isn't much of a part," she added to Cartel.

"No? Well, we all must begin, you know. That is the first blow to young ladies of your proclivities."

He rose, and bowed them out, as sign of dismissal. Wally and Isabelle went to lunch, and it took them so long to work out their plans—where Isabelle was to stay at present, how the matter was to be presented to Max, and such weighty subjects—that Isabelle was late to rehearsal, and was sharply reprimanded.

She felt this to be very unjust as her line did not come for a long time. At the end of a long, tedious day, she went home to dine in lonely state with the caretaker as cook, and to crawl into bed immediately thereafter.

Wally managed the situation very well. He made Max see the futility of fighting their child; he assured her that Cartel promised that the seizure would be brief. He looked up old Miss Watts, and engaged her to act as companion to the girl, accompanying her to all rehearsals. They were to live in a suite of rooms, opened for them in the house, with the caretaker providing their meals.

It was all satisfactory to Isabelle. She remembered Miss Watts with pleasure, and she proved an unobjectionable companion. She took a book and read during rehearsals. She seemed interested in Isabelle's future.

The career was not exciting so far. The first real event was the day Cartel came to rehearsal. Everybody was on tiptoe with excitement. The stupid, mumbling thing they called the play suddenly took shape, and point, and brilliancy. It infuriated Isabelle that her only chance lay in a vagrant, unimportant line here and there, when she knew she could play the lead, Mrs. Horton, with a dash and distinction totally lacking in the performance of the actress who was to play it.

She told Cartel so, on one of the infrequent occasions when she saw him to talk to. He laughed.

"The nerve of you kids!" he said. "You think the Lord has made you an actress, don't you? All you need is a chance at a leading part, in order to startle New York!"

Isabelle tried to reply, but he swept on.

"This is an Art; you want to desecrate a great, important Art! It takes long years of preparation, hard labour, infinite patience, aching disappointment; it takes brain, and passion, and intelligence to make an actor. Now where do you come in?"

"Well, but you thought this summer——"

"I thought you were a clever little girl doing a sleight-of-hand performance," was his crushing answer.

"But——"

"Can you dance? Can you fence? Can you run? Is your body as mobile and lithe as an animal's? Do you breathe properly? Can you sing? Is your voice a cultivated instrument with an octave and a half of tones, or have you five tones at your command? Do you know how to fill a theatre with a whisper? Can you carry your body with distinction? Can you sit and rise with grace? Is your speech perfect?" He hurled the questions at her.

"No," she admitted.

"Then you don't know the a-b-c's of this art. When you can say 'yes' to all these questions, then you are ready to begin, and not until then. Mind you—to begin!"

"But everybody on the stage cannot say 'yes' to all those things."

"No, worse luck! Because soft-hearted fools like me permit crude little girls like you to speak a line without any excuse for so doing. We'll have no great acting in America until we shut the door upon every boy and girl who thinks he can act, by the grace of God."

With this finale, the great man walked away, leaving Isabelle feeling very young and very flat. But she rallied presently. Of course, he had exaggerated it. It might be that the majority of people had to go that long, hard road of preparation, but always there would be some who would leap to the top without the ladder. In her deepest, secret heart she knew herself to be of that few.

She took up the subject again that very night, after dinner, with Miss Watts.

"What do you think is the most necessary thing for success, Miss Watts?"

"Work."

"But in something like the stage, I mean."

"It doesn't make any difference what it is, true success is the result of hard work and nothing else," that lady persisted, bromidically enough.

"Don't you think it is ever an accident?"

"If it is, it's the worst accident that can happen to you."

"Why?"

"Because then you have to live up to something you haven't earned. You don't know what to do, and in most cases you slump back into mediocrity."

"But there must be some people who don't grind——"

"Geniuses, maybe; but they usually do."

"How do you suppose geniuses recognize themselves?"

"They don't, in most cases."

"But if you felt that you had a great gift, that you were going to do wonderful things, mightn't it be that you were a genius?"

"I should say that it meant that you were merely young," smiled Miss Watts.

Isabelle decided that doubtless all geniuses met with this lack of recognition in those about them. She pinned her faith to herself! In spite of Cartel and Miss Watts—who, after all, were old—she rather thought that on the opening night, when she spoke her lines, few as they were, the critics would say simply, in large-type headlines:

"CARTEL HAS FOUND A GENIUS!"



CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

October came, dragged by, with the opening night of the play coming nearer. Wally induced Max to come to town and open the house. It was a cold autumn and nearly all of their friends returned early, too.

"I had hoped that nobody would be in town when this idiot child of ours makes her ridiculous debut, but now everybody on earth is home. Even the weather favours Isabelle's plans," complained Max to her spouse.

"No one need know about it, if we can keep it out of the papers."

"Yes, IF!"

"Better make the best of it. Ask a lot of people to dinner, take all the boxes, and make a joke of it."

"Isabelle may make a joke of us," commented her mother.

"She gets away with things," Wally encouraged her.

As for Isabelle, she was bored to the point of despair with her career. Day in, day out, she said her stupid lines. If she varied one inflection from yesterday's inflection she was reprimanded by Jenkins. Mary and her lines were as standardized as Webster's Dictionary, and no original turns were to be permitted. Cartel continued distant, every inch a star, wrapped in his greatness. The other members of the company paid scant attention to her, so she made no friends.

It was all very dull and mechanical. The play started off and ground itself through as automatically as a machine. Jenkins ruled like the boss of the shop. There was no room for genius.

Just to help herself endure the tedium of eternal rehearsal, Isabelle invented an absorbing game. She rewrote the play, in innumerable ways, with the plot revolving around Mary as the central figure. Mary was now the friend and adviser of Mrs. Horton, now the trusted confidante of Mr. Horton. But whichever she was, she was a noble, sublimated creature—no possible relation to Mary, the automatic servant. She had long, beautiful speeches, interesting and unusual stage business; she wore a striking maid's costume, designed by Isabelle. This Mary managed to keep Isabelle's imagination awake during the weary weeks in which the other Mary walked on and off, with her "Yes, Mrs. Horton," and her "No, Mr. Horton."

Suddenly a Sunday Supplement blossomed out with a full-page drawing of Isabelle, and the announcement of her coming debut on the stage, in Sidney Cartel's new production to open on such-and-such a date. Thereafter every paper in town blared forth the news of this event. There were full columns of talk about the Bryces, their money, their position, Mrs. Bryce's beauty, Isabelle's eccentricities. The originality and daring of their only child were dwelt upon at great length.

The performance with Cartel at the mountain inn was described. The hungry public was told how Cartel had seen her genius at a glance and persuaded her parents to let him have the training of her talent. Isabelle was snapshotted leaving the theatre, or riding in the Park. She was not safe a moment from reporters and camera men.

There was unanimous disapproval of this state of affairs on the part of her parents and her manager. It was difficult to tell which was the angrier. The Bryces accused Isabelle, but for once she was innocent. She had no idea how the reports started. She had talked to nobody. Miss Watts corroborated this statement. Neither of them knew when the artist made the sketch of her, and they never supposed that the photographers were taking her picture.

Cartel was furious. It was not in his plans at all to let this youngster take the middle of his stage on the occasion of his New York opening. He would have dismissed her at once, had the newspaper talk not gone so far. As it was he joined her parents heartily in a determined effort to shut them off. But it couldn't be done. Isabelle had caught the public eye; she was a marked personality, and editors played her up big.

Secretly she triumphed. It was only the beginning in the inevitable recognition of her greatness. It strengthened her belief that she was of the elect, and she rarely ever thought of the "Mary" part with which she was actually to prove herself, but she hurled herself into the development of the other Mary, which should have been hers, by all the laws of right. The two creatures merged—were one. Once or twice at rehearsal, aroused by her cue from some wonderful scene where Mary held the spotlight, she faltered for a second for those barren lines of the real Mary.

"What's the matter with you, Miss Bryce? Keep your mind on what you're doing," warned Jenkins.

She smiled at him. Poor fool! In a few weeks he would be bragging that he stage-managed her first appearance. She could afford to be patient with his bad temper, now.

Dress rehearsal was called and became a fevered memory. The day of the opening Isabelle spent quietly at home, except for a ride in the Park. She was to rest, and have her supper in her sitting room. Wally came in, in the midst of her repast, and fussed about her room.

"Aren't you nervous?" he inquired.

"Oh, no."

"I am. I'm so nervous I could scream!" he exploded. "I hate all this notoriety. They say the house will be packed."

"We always like a full house," she said, serenely.

"Suppose you flunk it!"

"But I won't!"—promptly.

He looked at her uncomprehendingly.

"If you could only be kept in a cage, in the cellar!"

She laughed gaily at that.

"Poor old Wally! Don't fret. You'll be very proud of me some day."

Max floated in.

"I thought I heard laughter."

"You did," Isabelle replied.

"Are you cool enough to laugh?"

"Quite. Wally is the only nervous one. Who is coming to dinner, Max?"

"Eighteen people. Christiansen for one."

"Oh, good!"

"When do you go to the theatre?"

"Seven."

"Come along, Wally, she ought to rest. For all our sakes, Isabelle, keep your head and don't make a fool of yourself."

"Much obliged," said Isabelle. "I take it you are wishing me luck."

Wally kissed her cheek, and they went out.

"Poor dears," mused Isabelle, "it will be hard for them to accommodate themselves to my importance."

Then she gave herself up to dreams of triumph until it was time to go. There was excitement in the air at the theatre. Voices were high, and eyes were bright. She was greeted loudly from open doors, as she went to her dressing room. Since the papers had boomed her, her position in the company had changed. Every one was dressed early and little knots of people discussed the big house, the critics, the chances of success for the play. It was a "strong" play, and, so far, the season had offered only trifles. It was too soon to know yet what the public appetite craved.

"You got to change its meat. When it's fed up on crooks, ye got to give it sex; when it turns against that, ye got to try comedy. My opinion is, this is a comedy season," said the gentleman who played the butler—a part even more inconspicuous than Isabelle's. They all inquired the state of her pulse, and marvelled at her calm.

"She'll be a hit, or she'll be rotten," was the butler gentleman's comment.

"She can't do much in that maid's part."

"Can't she? Remember the time they tried to bury Ethel Barrymore in a maid's part, when she was a kid? Took the show right away from John Drew!" said the authority.

Finally the curtain was up, and the play was on. Isabelle's initial appearance was late in the first act, when Cartel was building carefully the foundations of plot for the subsequent superstructure. Isabelle entered with a visitor's card in the middle of an important speech by Cartel. She had one line. To his intense fury, at sight of her the house burst into applause, and he had to halt his oration until she disappeared.

The play was a domestic drama, with the popular old-fashioned man, wed to the popular-new-fashioned woman who wants to "live her life." In the first act, the husband's point of view and character are expounded and contrasted with the woman's.

In a daring second act, the husband—on the casual invitation of an acquaintance to come along to a supper party in a certain man's rooms—finds his own wife acting as hostess. After the modern manner he breaks no furniture, makes no scene; but in tense tones, aside, he demands an explanation from her. She promises him an interview at their home, the following day, at five. He refuses to wait; she insists. He leaves. Events follow rapidly. The host has a stroke of apoplexy and dies. A muddle-headed guest summons a police ambulance instead of a hospital one. Police arrive, murder is suspected, every one is arrested. There is a strong finale, with hints of astounding revelations to come—in act three, of course.

The third act opens with a very tense atmosphere. Horton (Cartel), the husband—unaware that his wife is under arrest, suspected of murder—comes to his home, from the club, where he has spent a sleepless night. It is nearly five o'clock, the hour of the interview. Business of excitement, pacing, looking at watch. He rings for Mary, who enters.

"Where is Mrs. Horton, Mary?" he asks.

"Mrs. Horton telephoned she would be here at five o'clock, sir," answers Mary, who, according to the playwright, then goes out. But Mary did not exit.

"She hasn't been home all night, sir," she added suddenly, unexpectedly, "and it may be that she is in some trouble."

Cartel turned a fierce frown upon her.

"That will do, Mary," he said, threateningly.

Mary threw herself at his feet.

"Oh, Mr. Horton, don't be hard on her! She may have been misled by this man; but at heart she is a good woman—I could swear it."

Cartel was shaking with fury. He leaned over and grasped the prostrate Mary by the arm, so hard that he nearly cracked her bones. "Ouch!" she cried, "you're hurting me."

The audience slowly grasped the fact that this scene was a surprise to Cartel. It was so still you could have heard a sigh. Mary resisted any attempt to get her on her feet, and this side of carrying her off Cartel was helpless.

"If you'd only make a confidante of me, Mr. Horton, I could be a help to you in your hour of need," she cried passionately.

"Get out!" hissed Cartel, sotto voce.

"It looks as if she committed that murder, but I have facts to prove that she did not."

The rest of the act was devoted to breaking the news of the murder to Horton. In one fell line this demon had demolished the play. The audience began to titter, to laugh, to roar! Cartel dragged Isabelle to the door, and literally flung her forth. But at the expression on her face the audience actually shouted with delight, they applauded deafeningly.

Cartel acted quickly. He went up stage, turned his back, and looked out of a prop. window, for what seemed a lifetime, till the hysterics out in front subsided. Finally it was still enough for him to take up the scene again. But at the dramatic entrance of his wife, fresh from a night in jail, they were off again. Cartel glared at them, and in a shamefaced sort of way, they subsided, and the play creaked on, as dead as last year's news.

Mary had a later entrance, which Cartel cut, but it necessitated the mention of her name, whereupon the monster mirth was loosed again.

Finally the curtain descended upon the tragedy. Mrs. Horton went into hysterics, and Mr. Horton, bathed in sweat, went to look for Isabelle.

The company stood about in frightened groups, but he did not see them. He threw open her door without so much as a knock upon it, and he shouted so you could have heard him in Harlem.

"You little beast! You—you hell-cat! What d'ye mean by spoiling my scene like that?"

"Oh, I am so sorry," said Isabelle, "I didn't mean to do it, but I got the two Marys all mixed up."

"You're crazy—you're a mad woman! What do you think this will mean to me? It means failure—complete failure! I never could get through the scene again. It means thousands of dollars, that's what it means. Because I let a stage-struck fool like you speak a line! Talk about gratitude! You turn and ruin me!"

"But I didn't know——"

"Don't pull that baby stuff!" he shrieked. "You did know. You intended to do it all the time. You're so crazy about yourself, that you'd murder your own mother to get the spotlight! Get out of here! Don't you ever let me see your face again! Don't you ever step in this theatre, you dirty spy! Take her away! Take her away!" he raved, now entirely beside himself.

Isabelle for once was dumb. Poor, terrified Miss Watts seized her by the arm, and dragged her out the stage door, and down the alley.



CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Isabelle walked Miss Watts for miles. She would not answer questions, nor discuss the events leading up to Cartel's outburst.

"Of course, he isn't a gentleman," was her only remark during the entire walk. Poor Miss Watts was utterly in the dark over the whole situation. She was sitting quietly in the dressing room, reading the Atlantic Monthly, under the impression that the play was going nicely, when the terrible outbreak of Cartel occurred. One thing she grasped, and that was that the girl was suffering, so she let her alone and trudged along beside her, as well as she could.

Suddenly Isabelle called a taxi, and ordered the driver to hurry them home.

"I won't see the Wallys to-night," she said, as they reached the house. "If they're home, you tell them whatever you like."

But the Bryces were not in yet, so Matthews told them. Isabelle rushed upstairs, and went to bed, with a brief good-night to Miss Watts. An hour later Max snapped on the light in Isabelle's room, and evidently spoke to Wally.

"The little beast is asleep!" she said. "Did you ever hear anything equal to that?"

Isabelle heard him laugh; the light was turned off, and her parents went on their way. They never had any part in her crises. They thought this terrible, wracking fiasco was funny! She covered her ears to shut out the hideous wild laughing of that audience. She could never forget it as long as she lived—that gust of laughter, as if the solid earth had begun to rock and roll.

She tried to think back to the beginning of the disaster, but it was all hazy in her mind—a chaos of lights, people, applause, excitement—a mixture of the role she was playing and the one she had made up for herself. She could not remember when it was that she began on the wrong Mary.

She viewed the ruins of her hopes, lying all about her. She heard Cartel's shrieks of rage, and that awful laughing! It was terrible—terrible! And nobody would understand. There was nothing for her to do, but die.

She thought back to another time when she had wanted to die, and dear Mrs. Benjamin had comforted her. If only she were here now she would understand, and help her to face her disgrace. What was she to do? How could she live it down? She must hide somewhere. Maybe she ought to disappear in the morning, before her parents were awake. That would let her out of the much-dreaded interview with them. So with this idea in her mind, she fell into troubled sleep, at dawn.

When she woke, it was to broad daylight, and the presence of her father and mother.

"Oh!" sighed Isabelle, as her eyes fell on them.

"You've been asleep all day," said her mother. "We thought maybe you'd taken something."

"Taken something?"

"Drug, or something."

"Is it late?"

"Four o'clock in the afternoon."

"Oh, and I intended to get away early this morning."

"Get away where?" inquired Wally.

"Anywhere out of sight"—desperately.

He sat on the edge of her bed.

"Look here, kid, just what did happen?"

"You'll never understand, and I'm not going to talk about it," she said, sullenly.

"You needn't take that tone," said her mother, sharply. "You've made an utter fool of yourself, and of us, too."

"Now, Max, let her alone to-day," Wally protested.

"It's always 'Let her do it her own way,' with you. You backed her up in this foolishness. We've had all the publicity I intend to have through Isabelle. She will go back to school, and stay in retirement, until we are ready to bring her out," said Mrs. Bryce, firmly.

"All I say is that to-morrow is soon enough to take it up with her. The kid's had a bad fall, and she needs to get together."

"Yes, she has! She comes home and goes to sleep for sixteen hours, while we read the newspapers."

"Newspapers?"

"Column after column of what you did to Cartel's opening. If he doesn't sue Wally for a fat sum, I miss my guess."

"What did they say?"

"You can read them for yourself. I intend that you shall. If there is any way to cure your conceit, I'd like to see it done," Mrs. Bryce continued.

"Plenty of time later," urged Wally, distressed at his daughter's white, tragic face. "Did Cartel say anything to you last night?"

Isabelle nodded.

"Dismissed you?"

Again she inclined her head.

"I should hope so," laughed Max, shortly. "Paper says he has gone to Atlantic City with a nervous collapse."

"And the play?" Isabelle said.

"Closed. That's what you did. Must have endeared yourself to the company."

With a groan, Isabelle turned her face to the wall, and Wally dragged Max out of the room.

Later Miss Watts came in to offer tea. The girl refused it, but she begged her companion to bring her all the morning papers.

"Wait until to-morrow, my dear," Miss Watts begged, alarmed at the change in her.

"No. I want to get it over."

So the papers were brought.

After propping her up on pillows and seeing that she was bodily comfortable at least, Miss Watts withdrew. Isabelle began at the beginning and read every word about that unhappy opening. The articles were written with a jocularity hard to bear. Most of them had graduated out of the regular dramatic review columns on to the first page. "HILARIOUS OPENING AT THE NEW YORK THEATRE!" "CARTEL'S FIND!" "IMPROMPTU ARTIST MAKES BOW." These were some of the captions.

They all developed the story for what it was worth: Cartel's discovery of Isabelle at the inn; a few paragraphs about her family; mention of the wonderful publicity provided for her; a description of the brilliant first-night audience, with the Bryces' distinguished guests in all the boxes; Isabelle's reception as the maid. Then followed the plot of the play, up to the awful moment when Cartel's "discovery" forgot her lines and began to improvise. They painted the star's astonishment and subsequent fury. They added speculation as to the real climax of the evening which must have taken place back on the stage after the dropping of the final curtain. Every article made you hear the uncontrollable laughter of the audience.

Isabelle agonized over each one. She raged at the opinion of one dramatic critic who said that no doubt Cartel would release Miss Bryce on the morrow, but that a dozen managers would step forward to capture a young woman of such marked personality, and such a talent for publicity.

Max was right; they were all ruined. She had made the whole family ridiculous. She wasn't surprised that Max hated her for it. She deserved anything from them now. She lay in bed for several days, scarcely touching food, brooding upon her disgrace until she was really ill.

Wally hovered about her, deeply concerned, but not knowing how to comfort her. He kept Max out of the room as much as he could. Finally he sent for a doctor.

"Perfectly unnecessary," said his wife. "She isn't sick. She's made a fool of herself and lost the middle of the stage, so now she goes on a hunger strike to work up a little sympathy."

"The kid is suffering, I tell you. She is all broken up over this. I think we ought to take her away somewhere."

"You can count me out. I've been dragged home to open this house for her convenience. I'm not going off to some empty resort place because she needs a change."

The doctor had a talk with Isabelle, told her to cheer up, gave her a tonic, agreed with Wally that she needed a change, and went on his way.

Martin Christiansen asked Max about Isabelle and was informed that she had the sulks. He asked permission to see her, and he was the first visitor admitted to her room. He was shocked at the change in her. She was thin, and haggard, and old. Her eyes hurt him. She was sitting up, in a big chair, wearing a bizarre Chinese coat, all orange and black and gold. She looked any age, an exotic little creature. The hand she offered was thin as a bird's claw.

"I've been thinking that you might understand," she said to him, before he could speak.

"Thank you."

He drew a chair beside hers and waited.

"You didn't think I forgot my lines, did you?"

"It wasn't like you."

"I didn't. I was bored at rehearsals, and so I made up a wonderful Mary-part for myself, a noble character whom every one trusted."

Her eyes were upon his face, and he nodded slowly, hoping that his amusement did not leak through his expression.

"Every day, all those hours, I used to be this made-up Mary, and just toward the last I got a little wobbly as to which Mary was which," she admitted.

"Naturally."

"I knew you would see that. Well, the night of the opening I was so excited that I mixed them all up."

She said this with such tragic emphasis that he did not even want to laugh.

"How unfortunate!" he exclaimed.

"No, it wasn't unfortunate," she cried; "it was stupid, stupid, stupid!"

"Yes, it was, a trifle," he admitted.

"I thought I was going to be such a success. I just knew I could act. Cartel said it would take me years of hard work even to begin to be an artist, and I thought I could just show him."

"I think you may be said to have shown him!" Christiansen remarked.

"Yes, I did. I showed him I was a fool. I don't wonder that he nearly killed me for it."

"No doubt it was real agony for a man as highly strung as he is. For months he had been building a fine house, and in three blows you sent it crumbling."

"Oh, don't!" groaned Isabelle.

"I didn't come to reproach you. I came to help. I want to be sure that we both understand that you have been to blame in this affair. That settled, we'll go on to the next step."

"There isn't any next step. I've disgraced us all."

"Oh, come, it isn't so bad as that. You have given a great many people a good laugh, and no doubt they are very grateful to you for it. Now, do you want to go on with the stage?—really to study the fine art of acting?"

"No! no! NO!"

"What are your plans?"

"I haven't any."

"You cannot spend the rest of your life in this room, my child."

"I'd like to."

"There's always something to be made of our tragedies, Isabelle. The first thing is to get yourself well again. You're all eyes. It won't do. You must go away and get together, and when you come back we will have a talk about your work. I'm sure you have talent of some sort, if we can just direct it properly."

"I'll never believe in myself again."

He laughed and patted her hand.

"Europe is out of the question. How about Bermuda? Ever been there?"

"No"—indifferently.

"Just the place. Lots doing. Soldiers recuperating, people to watch, people to play with. Fine place for you. I'll suggest it to your parents."

He rose and took her two small hands.

"You promise me to get well, and to come back your old vivid self?"

"I'll try. You are a comfort. You helped that other time, too, when the guillotine nearly broke Tommy Page's neck."

He threw back his head and laughed so heartily at the memory, that she laughed too.

"I've always been rather ridiculous, haven't I?" she asked him.

"My child, that is an elderly remark," he said, and he left her—on the whole, cheered.

He promptly made his suggestion to the Bryces. It was discussed pro and con and then finally it was decided to ship the girl off, in Miss Watts's care, for it was evident that she was making herself ill with the humiliation of her failure.

* * * * *

So, one day in November Wally saw them off.

"You look like a Brownie," he said, as he kissed Isabelle good-bye. "For goodness' sake, get some flesh on your bones."

"Don't worry, old thing," she answered. "I'll come back fat, and chastened in spirit."

He grinned, and ran for the gangway, and stood waving and smiling as the steamer slipped from the pier.



CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The two travellers settled themselves and took stock of the passengers in the casual way of those who go down to the sea in ships. Miss Watts was prepared to have Isabelle throw herself into the activities of the brief voyage, in order that she might forget her troubles. She did just the opposite. She lay in her chair, reading or contemplating the sea; she marched the deck in absent-minded solitude. Miss Watts was the only person she spoke to, or permitted to speak to her.

But her odd face, her unusual clothes, and her great hauteur marked her at once in the eyes of the idlers who sat on deck and gossiped. She was soon identified as the heroine of the Cartel opening. Speculation and much interest followed her.

The second day out the chair to the right of Isabelle was occupied for the first time. A cursory glance was enough to assure her of the following facts: he was handsome "as an army with banners"; he wore an English officer's uniform; and he was very pale. She decided to have another look in a moment.

She settled herself comfortably—aware that his eyes were upon her—and opened her book, with an air of great detachment. Miss Watts was not on deck at the moment. It was some time before she got another chance to look at him unobserved. She saw that he had crinkly hair and a ridiculous little moustache, twisted at the tips. He had his eyes closed. He certainly was white, but one strong, lean, brown hand lay on his lap, giving her a feeling of relaxed power. His eyes opened unexpectedly, and she had to return to her book in haste. His eyes were very blue and she thought there was a smile in them.

Miss Watts's arrival interrupted this interchange, if it was an interchange. But in a few minutes another officer came to chat with the invalid.

"Hello, Larry, old man, how are ye?" he inquired.

"I'm fairly fit to-day, thanks."

"Glad you can be on deck."

"Rather. I thought I'd croak in that hole of a stateroom."

"Lot of people aboard we know. Mrs. Darlington, for one. Remember her in London?"

"Rather."

"She's dying to see 'dear old Larry.' Sit tight, she's on her way now," he added, in a lower voice.

Isabelle permitted herself a look. A tall, handsome woman was coming down the deck, with a swaying sort of walk that was fascinating. She was very smartly turned out. A rather fat man, with prominent eyes, accompanied her. They stopped beside Larry's chair, and she exclaimed enthusiastically:

"How are you, old dear? They would not let me into your stateroom, or I should have been holding your hand, and giving Mrs. Grundy a treat."

"Larry" got to his feet and accomplished a gallant bow.

"Awf'lly good of ye," he said, smiling, holding her hand in his.

"You know Monty Haven, don't you? Captain Larry O'Leary, Monty, and Major O'Dell."

So his name was Larry O'Leary, mused Isabelle. She liked its softness on the tongue.

"Does your wound trouble you, you brave thing?" Mrs. Darlington purred.

"Oh, no. Coming all right. It's nothing."

"Nothing? Do you know what this wonderful creature did, under fire and all, Monty?" she demanded.

"O kind and beautiful lady, spare me blushes. I'm after being Irish and susceptible to flattery," he cried.

"Larry, you old heart-breaker, don't look at me in that wistful Celtic way," she commanded.

"Mrs. Darlington, dear, ye may as well resign yersilf to bein' looked at," he retorted.

"It is good to hear your blarney and your brogue, Larry. By the way, old Mrs. Van Dyke is aboard and demands a sight of you."