"I don't really worry; only I wish more people knew the other side of the boy. But now prepare yourself for a shock. It is Babe, this time. She is going to study medicine."

"What!"

"Yes. She came home for that."

"Phebe a doctor! She is about as well fitted for it as for a--plumber."

"So I think; but to hear her talk about it, one would think her whole aim in life was wholesale surgery. She appears to revel in grim details of arteries and ligaments. The fact is, she is restless and wants some occupation, and this seems to appeal to her."

"I believe I know how she feels. I went through something the same experience, my last year in college," Billy said thoughtfully. "It is a species of mental growing pains; one wants to do something, without knowing just what. I don't believe Babe will ever write M.D. after her name, and I devoutly hope she won't kill too many people in trying for it; but the study will be good for her. She has played long enough, and a little steady grind will help her to work off some of her extra energy.

Let her go on."

Theodora rose and stood leaning on the back of his chair.

"You are such a comfort, Billy," she said gratefully. "I was afraid you would be horrified at the idea, and feel that Phebe didn't appreciate all your mother has done for her. It was a great deal for her to take a young girl like Babe for two years, and give her the best of Europe. Babe knows it, and she almost reveres your mother." She was silent for a moment. Then she said impetuously, "Billy, are my family too near?"

"Of course not. Why?"

"Are they too much in evidence? We belong to each other, you and I; I want you all to myself, and it seems as if my people were always coming in to interrupt us,--not they themselves, but worries about them. I love them dearly, and I want them; but I could be content on a desert island alone with you. I never have half enough of you, and sha'n't, as long as I have to bring up Allyn and Phebe and Hubert. Your family are well-behaved; they stay in the background."

"They may crop up unexpectedly," Mr. Farrington answered, in a burst of prophecy of whose truth he was unconscious. "But what about the book, Teddy? It is time you were at work."

Theodora clasped her hands at the back of her head and began to pace the floor. Her step was as free and lithe as that of an active boy; and her pale gown brightened the color in her cheeks and in the glossy coils of her hair. Her husband looked up at her proudly. They had been comrades before they had been lovers; and, from the day of their first meeting to the present hour, his admiration and his loyalty had been boundless and unswerving. Suddenly she paused before him.

"William," she said; "I am lazy, utterly lazy. It is so good to be at home again and keeping house all by our two selves that I want to enjoy myself for a s.p.a.ce. For a month, a whole month longer, I am going to play and have the good of life. Then I shall shut myself up and say farewell to the world while I create a masterpiece that will rend your heart and your tear glands. Only," she dropped down on a footstool beside him; "only I do hope that Allyn and Babe will return to their wonted habits, and that this new cook will learn that one doesn't usually mash macaroni before bringing it to the table. If it were not for the souls and the digestions of our families, Billy, we could all produce great works."

CHAPTER FOUR

Theodora Farrington's saving grace lay in her sense of humor. It had saved her from many dangers, from none more insidious than that lurking in five years' experience as a successful author. It had rescued her from the slough of despond when unappreciative publishers rejected her most ambitious attempts; it had come to her aid also when a southern admirer whose intentions were better than his rhetoric, sent her a ma.n.u.script ode constructed in her honor. She had won success in her profession; but she had won it at the expense of some hard knocks. But, however much the world might be awry, two people had never lost faith in her talent. To her father and her husband, to their encouragement and their belief in her future, Theodora owed her best inspiration.

For the past year, she had forsaken her inky way and given herself up to a well-earned rest, wandering from Mexico to Alaska and back again to Helena. Now that she was settled in her home once more, the spirit of work was lacking. Theodora was domestic, and she found it good to take up her household cares again, so for a month after her return she turned a deaf ear to her publisher while she and her husband revelled in their coming back to humdrum ways much as a pair of children play at housekeeping. Then Theodora's conscience a.s.serted itself, with the discouraging result that she became undeniably cross and, over his paper of an evening, Billy watched her in respectful silence. Past experience had taught him what this portended.

Two days later, Theodora came to luncheon with unruffled brow. Across the table, her husband looked at her inquiringly.

"Under way, Teddy?"

"Yes, at last."

"I'm glad. I do hope nothing will interrupt you."

"Something will; it always does. Fortunately it is Lent and not much is stirring. Anyway, I mean to have my mornings free, whatever comes."

"I'll mount guard on the threshold, if you want," he responded.

Only a week afterward, Theodora was in her writing-room, hard at work.

Her desk, surmounted by a shabby photograph of her husband in his boyhood, was orderly and deserted; but the broad couch across the western window was strewn with sheets of ma.n.u.script which overflowed to the floor, while in the midst of them Theodora sat enthroned, a book on her knee and her ink insecurely poised on one of the cushions beside her.

Across the lawn she could see The Savins among the tall, bare trees, and she paused now and then to watch the yellow sunshine as it sifted down through the branches. All at once she stopped, with a frown.

"But I must see her," Allyn was saying sharply.

"She is busy."

"Never mind; she will see me."

There was a word or two more; then a silence, and Theodora returned to her interrupted sentence. The next minute, she started abruptly, as she heard a boyish fist descend on the panels of her door.

"Go away! Oh, my ink!" she exclaimed. "Please let me alone. It's all tipped over."

"I'm sorry, Ted; but I must come." And Allyn stalked into the room.

"Oh, what do you want?" she asked despairingly, as she took up the dripping pillow by the corners and looked about for a suitable place to deposit it.

"Throw it out of the window," he suggested briefly. "I didn't mean to, Teddy; but there's a row, and I must tell you."

She shut down the window sharply. Then she turned to look at him, and of a sudden the annoyance vanished from her face and in its place there came a new expression gentler and of a great protecting love. Years before, in his invalid boyhood, her husband had known that look. Of late, no one but Allyn had called it forth. To-day there was need for it, for Allyn was in evident want of sympathy. His cheeks were flushed; but there was a white line around his lips, and his hands, like his voice, were unsteady. He was short and slight, with a ma.s.s of smooth brown hair and brown eyes that for the moment had lost all their merriment and were sternly sombre under their straight brows. His chin was firm; but his lips were not so full of decision.

Swiftly Mrs. Farrington gathered up her papers and shut them into her Desk. Then she turned abruptly, laid her hands on the boy's shoulders and looked straight down into his eyes.

"What is it, Allyn?" she asked gravely.

For an instant his lips quivered. Then he said briefly,--

"I'm expelled, Teddy."

"Allyn!"

"Yes, I know."

"Not really?"

She read confirmation in his eyes.

"What for?" she demanded.

"For insulting Mr. Mitch.e.l.l."

"What did you say?"

"I told him what I thought of him, and he didn't like it."

Theodora frowned at the tone of boyish bravado.

"Allyn," she said steadily; "tell me, what you have done."