poke that was almost vicious. "I suppose Mr. Pierce has been selling a lot of pictures?" She knew he had not been selling any, but it seemed inevitable that she begin to talk of this crazy artist that Rosemary seemed so interested in.

"No; last week in London, when we were hard up, we tried to sell three of them for ten shillings, but it was no good," said Wallie Sands. He glanced around the comfortable sitting-room with its long red-velvet hangings, shutting out the cold, dark Parisian afternoon, and Mrs. Hempstead thought he looked a little wistful. Probably this warm apartment was Paradise to these two poor boys. The table beside her was nearly bare of cakes and sandwiches, though Rosemary had insisted on having much too much food for a proper afternoon tea, Mrs. Hempstead considered. It may do for dinner for Evans, she had told her mother anxiously. Mrs. Hempstead wondered if the boys were ever really cold and hungry and unable to get food and warmth. She shivered. After all, it ought not to be hard to make friends. She smiled her agreeable smile.

"You paint, of course," she said to she said to Wallie Sands.

"No, I'm afraid I don't." He glanced uneasily across the room and caught the eye of Irene Sack, who was absorbed in conversation with another American, named Browne. His face became animated suddenly as it had not been animated for one moment during his talk with Mrs. Hempstead. Youth calls to youth, thought the older woman, a little sadly and a little complacently at the aptness of her phrase. Irene Sack was calling, in her harsh Middle-Western accent, across the room. Really, over here her voice sounded almost unbearable.

"Wallie, I'm going to make my fortune. I've just thought of the most wonderful invention in the world," called Irene. Mrs. Hempstead decided that Wallie Sands would be revolted immediately, but he seemed more interested than ever. With a wonderfully forbearing smile Mrs. Hempstead waited until the frivolity should release Wallie again. How long was Rosemary going to continue to talk to that impossible artist, leaving young Mr. Browne from the consulate to be

bored by Irene Sack. She would have to move things about some way.

"It's a toothbrush," shouted Irene triumphantly. "Mr. Browne's crazy about it. You put the toothpaste in the stem, press a little button, and the toothpaste shoots out." Mrs. Hempstead shuddered. What a pity it was that girls like Irene came over and represented the American girl in Europe! However, they could all see that Rosemary was different.

"I thought Rosemary told me you painted," went on Mrs. Hempstead patiently. "You young artists are so modest. You all say you're trying to paint."

"No, really, I assure you," said Wallie Sands. He raised his voice and spoke across the room to Irene Sack. "That's like my comb that I invented, with hairoil in it."

Hair-oil! And Mrs. Hempstead had always thought the English so conservative. Well, no doubt this young man came from questionable people. Rosemary seemed to be getting a genius for picking them up here in Paris. She sat very still, pleasantly smiling in a faint, well-poised way. Her gray hair rose in even undulations to a summit, like a sophisticated hill that has been worn from its pristine ruggedness by a thousand cosmopolitan feet. And as she glanced at her young, delicately wrought daughter, she seemed even more the mistress of the room and of any situation that might imaginatively arise. Rosemary was hers, a part of the room, and very different from the rest of the people sipping tea and wine there. It was as if Rosemary were chained to her with an invisible but very strong golden chain. She sighed slightly. It was exhausting waiting for the young people to stop. Youth must be served, she thought. Phrases like that were so helpful in really thinking things out. When she was young she would never have broken into a conversation with an older woman like that. The older woman would not have suffered it. However, she was more open-minded than those old women she used to know. Yes, and times had changed. To-day you had to wait on young people, if you wanted them to like you; if you wanted to be an influence.

"I've invented an eyebrow pencil,

too," said Irene. "The advertising slogan will be: 'Washes and Dyes in one operation.""

Mrs. Hempstead leaned forward smiling. "And while you're about it," she said in her soft, distinct tones, "you might tell them to dispense with the dye altogether. Isn't it queer that people don't seem to know that rouge ruins the skin?" No one had any answer to make to this, it seemed, for every one in the room was silent and then, Wallie Sands, mumbling something, seized the opportunity to retire into a corner with Irene Sack. This left young Mr. Browne sitting alone on a straight chair, awkwardly pretending to be interested in some carved candlesticks that Rosemary had bought at Caen, which stood on a buffet of heavy oak behind him. The electric light glared down on him pitilessly, exhibiting every line of his faultless afternoon costume and the unhappily vacant look upon his face.

"I'm deserted, you see," said Mrs. Hempstead, smiling. She felt somehow that she would be able to put this young man at his ease and to bring him out, two of her favorite exercises with men, which she was seldom able to practise on the young men Rosemary knew. "Won't you come and sit beside me?" She indicated the large, low, mustard-colored armchair beside her, and Mr. Browne rose stiffly and came toward her. As he advanced, his collar seemed to be pressing into his neck so that he turned his head with great difficulty. He exhibited the back of his cutaway to Rosemary and Evans Pierce somewhat uneasily before lowering himself with a slow precision into the mustard-colored chair beside Mrs. Hempstead.

"You're in the consular service," began Mrs. Hempstead brightly. She bent forward with great interest while she listened to his response, though she was much more conscious of the low hum of the voices of Evans Pierce and Rosemary on one side of the room, of Wallie Sands and Irene on the other, of the sucking noise which the logs made in the fireplace, and even of the footsteps which were passing in the hallway of the building beyond the door. "Oh, that's very interesting," was her next remark, and, as she had foreseen, it started Mr. Browne off VOL. LXXVIII.-26

excellently on the conversational road to which he was accustomed.

In drawing this young man out it would be as well to find out something about him, Mrs. Hempstead was thinking. Perhaps she had been permitting herself to grow rather careless in regard to the young people Rosemary was meeting. Not really careless, either, she thought. Things were somehow getting out of her hands more and more. Like serving wine at tea. She was reminded of this by the consciousness that Evans Pierce had risen and advanced to the table beside her to refill his wine-glass. She looked up and smiled her competent, somewhat dexterous smile at him, a smile which in no way robbed Mr. Browne of her perfect attention, yet included Pierce in a little kindly greeting. She was remembering what Rosemary had said before the arrival of her guests: "We simply must serve wine, or Evans Pierce will think we are simply provincial!" That was the kind of a young man he was. And then Rosemary had repeated a silly little anecdote with that far-away, almost affectionate expression that Mrs. Hempstead was beginning to dread whenever the name of Evans Pierce was mentioned. Some one had said to Pierce once in Rosemary's hearing that he was a regular tea-hound, he was seen at so many teas. "Yes, but I never drink tea at any of them," Evans had replied, and Rosemary had thought this amusing! Mrs. Hempstead's thoughts were becoming more and more unpleasant. Evans Pierce and Rosemary! Impossible! But Rosemary was being really rude, the way she was neglecting the rest of her guests.

"That is pleasant," she said to Mr. Browne with enthusiasm. He had been an easy one to start talking. Her cues fed in at just the right time gave her the old sensation she had always loved: that of making men talk well. She had always prided herself on her ability to make them converse with her on really serious subjects. Her conversation had never been mere frivol, the way it was with young girls to-day. Even in her youth she had known the value of being serious and had had grave, important men discuss grave, important subjects with her.

Like the scent of spring being wafted in

through the windows on a lilac-laden wind, a dozen delicious triumphs of her girlhood passed through her thoughts for an instant, leaving their warm, satisfying feeling of comfort. There was the earnest young lawyer who had walked with her those summer twilights, the year that she was twenty, talking law to her, utterly absorbed and quite unaware that she was not understanding a tenth of what he said. It had never mattered. She had kept him talking, and he had complimented her once publicly on her brilliant mind. And Senator Bridgeman! One of our nation's real men. He had liked to tell rather old jokes, and she had always laughed. He came about once a week for dinner and told the same stories over and over. Once in a national crisis he had asked her advice about a bill, the bill was about waterways or currency or something frightfully important, and she had been thrilled to the very marrow to think she was really helping with things that really counted.

Oh, well, she was older now, and to-day the younger people in the world did not care what she thought. Nonsense, she was getting morbid. And Rosemary was a very good daughter compared to a great many girls. There was no real harm in serving a moderate amount of wine, and to a girl of Rosemary's active intelligence it was probably quite natural to find a desire for people in the arts. If only they weren't such queer people. Evans Pierce, for instance. What could she see in him? No doubt a nice sweet boy, a thoroughly fine, good boy, and to be commended highly for working himself up from the lower classes. Yes, a self-made boy, she admired that in him, and probably that was what Rosemary admired, too. But it seemed a little strange that Rosemary should want to spend so much time with him. She must get frightfully bored with him.

Mrs. Hempstead experienced a definite feeling of dread as she realized that this last thought had been meant to deceive herself. Rosemary was not bored with him, and she didn't even seem to mind his grammar. And this was the third time this week that she had seen him. The third time? Yes, last night at dinner, and Monday at tea, and this morning

when he came to return the book. "How amusing!" she said aloud to the by this time voluble Mr. Browne.

But her fear deepened as she thought of this morning and the incident of the book. He had come in just as Rosemary was about to have her hair washed. "If you like to wait about ten minutes, I'll come in and dry it in here," Rosemary had said. How could Rosemary have done a thing like that? But she was so innocent. She didn't realize what it did to young men to see her long golden hair hanging loose like that. She had come in with her head done up in a towel as soon as the hair-dresser had finished with her, and actually sat with her wet hair and talked to Pierce for about half an hour until he left.

The young man was probably very much encouraged by the incident. She did wish that Rosemary would stop talking to him. What could they be finding to talk about for so long? Young Mr. Browne had come to a stop and needed a cue.

"Your experiences are so interesting, and you really do a lot of good, too. How did you happen to choose the consular service?"

"Well, you see my dad makes motorcars, and he wanted me to go into the business with him, but I couldn't see it. . . ." Motor-cars! Her mind jumped into action away from the troublesome thoughts that had been cluttering them. Browne motor-cars! Could it be? Why, this was one of the largest fortunes in America. No, it couldn't be. How could she find out without appearing to be prying. This young man was thoroughly nice, anyway, thoroughly presentable. She liked his even, regular features, a sign of delicate perceptions. His ear-lobes were the right shape, too; he had no criminal instincts. She always judged men by their ear-lobes. Evans Pierce had none. A Princeton man he was, too. Then he had had the right training. He had all the ideals of the real American, a glow ran through her as she thought: "Real American." Somehow, far off on a foreign shore those words always gave her a thrill. It didn't matter, really, whether this young man was connected with Browne motor-cars or not. Just so he had

enough money to keep Rosemary comfortable. And it was evident that he had enough or he wouldn't be in the consular service. He was just the kind of a young man that Rosemary would care for. So handsome and attractive and well-bred.

Mr. Browne's talk rippled on with almost no interruption. In the fireplace the logs emitted a derisive roar now and then, and in a corner the Englishman, Wallie Sands, and Irene Sack conversed in low tones. Across the room Rosemary still sat absorbed in Evans Pierce, a flush on her face, and her slim figure slumped down in her chair.

"What time'd you get up this morning, Rosemary?" called Irene. "I was simply dead to the world."

"I can't remember what happened after we left the Lapin Agile," said Wallie Sands. "Oh, yes, I do, too. You were funny, Evans." Mrs. Hempstead was wrenched away from her delightful contemplation of Mr. Browne's conversation with a horrid jolt. Rosemary hadn't told her that the party last night had been gay. How dreadful for her little girl! To her horror Wallie Sands was going on: "You came in and said you had come on upstairs with Rosemary instead of leaving her at the door. You must have been gone!"

Evans Pierce was having the grace to look embarrassed. "I'm afraid the party was a little too rough for you, Rosemary," he was saying. At least, Mrs. Hempstead was thinking with relief, he realizes that Rosemary is different.

"Not at all," Rosemary answered with her soft little laugh. "I was only sorry I wasn't able to join in more.'

Mrs. Hempstead was nearly angry at that. Didn't Rosemary understand when she ought to take a decided stand? "I'm sure nobody would blame you for that," said Mrs. Hempstead. She looked around smiling. "But really, I'm monopolizing Mr. Browne. It's not fair for an elderly person of very small attraction to take up all of one gentleman's time. Rosemary, you come sit here and talk to Mr. Browne."

Rosemary arose and came over to the chair by the fire that her mother had vacated with a reluctance almost obvious. She began without the oil of experience

her mother possessed for making conversational wheels go round more smoothly. She blundered over asking him about the consular service. Everything stopped. They both fidgeted. They tried the weather, they tried Paris. Every one in the room watched them with embarrassment, for Mrs. Hempstead, who would have helped, perhaps, had gone out of the room. It was Wallie Sands who came over and began to talk to Rosemary.

"Horrible ass, isn't he?" he whispered. "Why do you go on talking to him?" "What can I do?" said the agonized Rosemary, a little comforted.

"Shut up like an oyster! I would!" said Wallie. "He's poisonous. Worse when he gets going than he is stopped up. I listened to him going it to your mother." "Mother's wonderful," said Rosemary wistfully.

"Does she go on like that all the time? I mean, ask you what you are, whether you paint or write, or what and then follow up with just the proper questions for each one? What if I told her I was a tight-rope walker? What would she say then?"

"Mother's always made people talk," said Rosemary disinterestedly. "She's so interested in every one that she draws people out."

Irene, deprived of her Englishman, had gone back to Mr. Browne and drawn him into her circle of nonsense. Evans Pierce, with his eyes on nothing in particular, his legs stretched before him, sat staring.

"Evans is wondering where his next meal is coming from as usual," said Wallie.

Rosemary lost her look of languid discomfort. "Oh, dear," she said. "Wallie, if I could only get him some kind of a job. And yet he has so much talent, it's awful to think of him wasting his energy when he ought to be painting. Wallie, I think he's got real genius; I mean . . She broke off and began again. "Do you know, I don't think of anything else all day long but of how to get some kind of a job for Evans, where he won't have to work so hard and can have time to paint."

The intensity in her voice caused Wallie to glance around somewhat apprehensively. Mrs. Hempstead had come back into the room. He saw that she had

heard even before she spoke. "Of course Mr. Pierce is going to get a nice job," she said soothingly to everybody. "Now I think, not that any one wants to know what I think-" she paused and looked around the room.

"Oh, I'm sure we all want to hear what you think, mother," said Rosemary.

Mrs. Hempstead took a chair in the centre of the room, that contrived to dominate the group. If these young people were really willing to listen to her she could tell them a lot of things that would make life much simpler and easier for them. In that instant of expansion she saw Irene, minus her rouge and with her hair grown long and neatly tucked in, wedded to a strong virile man and nursing a baby enveloped in lace. She saw Rosemary married to Mr. Browne, and Mr. Browne's father in the background giving them their first check for a million dollars, and she saw Evans Pierce, his grammar entirely made over, stout, prosperous, and respectable. Yet none of these pictures were definitely formed in her mind except the last, for it was of Evans Pierce that she was going to speak.

"Mr. Pierce will get a job in some nice architect's office," she began in the tone of a fond mother painting the joys of going to bed to a sceptical son. "And there he will find plenty to occupy the artistic side of his nature, as well as the other methodical work he will have to do. And besides that he can have the joy of knowing that he is doing good for others. He does not need to begin designing pleasure palaces and big luxurious mansions. Let him begin humbly, and bring real beauty into the lives of the poor.'

"Yes, I don't see why some one doesn't do that," said Mr. Browne helpfully. But Rosemary, with her voice full of young tender yearning, said hopelessly: "But, mother, he's an artist and he wants to paint, and he ought to paint, and you can't paint in an architect's office."

Evans looked at his shoes and grew redder than ever.

"That's all very well," said Mrs. Hempstead, "to want to paint. Nobody appreciates these artistic impulses more than I. At the same time we all must live, and though man cannot live by bread

alone, he needs the bread. What he really wants is to create beauty, isn't it, Mr. Pierce?"

Evans Pierce looked up and into Mrs. Hempstead's eyes with a look that startled her. What was that, there behind his eyes? He was like a caged animal perhaps. He didn't understand. He thought she was goading him. "I-I— guess so," he choked. Her heart softened. He should understand that she understood this craving for beauty that he had. Her voice softened.

"I know. We've all had it perhaps at some time in our lives, the desire to create something beautiful. To paint a beautiful picture, to write a beautiful song that will lodge in somebody's heart forever. To reach the heart, that's what we all want to do, isn't it? I go to all the exhibitions and I look around at the pictures, and what do I see? I see beautiful things, things that I can appreciate and admire, but do I ever see anything that I want to take home and have on my walls? Could I stand it to look at any of these modern things day after day?" She smiled and they comprehended that she could not.

"No. Why is it? You all wonder why it is that you cannot do beautiful things such as the old masters did. Because you are not doing it with love in your hearts. I don't mean that you personally haven't love in your hearts, but

"Mother," said Rosemary painfully,

"do

you know of any architect's office in Paris where Evans could get a job?"

Mrs. Hempstead with a faint ripple of annoyance turned toward her daughter, but she did not follow up her daughter's rudeness with another rudeness. "Why, I dare say there are any number of offices where Mr. Pierce could get a job."

"Would you like it, do you think, just for a while?" said the girl eagerly to Evans Pierce.

Mrs. Hempstead was seriously alarmed. All this about a job was very terrifying. Had things gone that far? Had he spoken to Rosemary, and had Rosemary?... Looking at the flush on Rosemary's face she could hardly doubt what Rosemary had answered. And the exclamation that she had overheard as she came into the room: "I think of nothing else night and