"There, my boy! Babette is one of us--one of the great company of the stars! Wonderful, how you find them at every turn! Babette, my sister, I salute you!"

She smiled and turned toward Deering.

"Are you, too, one of the Comrades of Perpetual Youth?" she inquired gravely.

"I am," Deering declared heartily, and they smiled at each other; "but I'm only a novice--a brother of the second cla.s.s."

She shook her head.

"There can be no question of cla.s.ses in the great comradeship--either we are or we are not."

"Well spoken!" Hood a.s.sented, pushing back his chair and crossing his legs comfortably.

"And you--do you and Pierrette think about things the same way?" Deering asked.

"We do--by not thinking," Babette replied. "Thinking among the comrades is forbidden, is it not?"

"Absolutely," Hood affirmed. "Our young brother here is still a little weak in the faith, but he's taking to it splendidly."

"I'm new myself," Babette confessed.

"You're letter-perfect in the part," said Hood. "Perhaps you were driven to it? Don't answer if you would be embarra.s.sed by a confession."

The girl pondered a moment; her face grew grave, and she played nervously with the sugar-tongs.

"A man loved me and I sent him away, and was sorry!" The last words fell from her lips falteringly.

"He will come back--if he is worthy of one of the comradeship," said Hood consolingly. "Even now he may be searching for you."

"I was unkind to him; I was very hard on him! And I've been afraid--sometimes--that I should never see him again."

Deering thought he saw a glint of tears in her eyes. She rose hastily and asked with a wavering smile:

"If there's nothing further----"

"Not food--if you mean that," said Hood.

"But about Pierrette!" Deering exclaimed despairingly. "If she's likely to come, we must wait for her."

"I rather advise you against it," the girl answered. "I have no idea when she will come back."

They rose instinctively as she pa.s.sed out. The door fanned a moment and was still.

"Well?" demanded Deering ironically.

"Please don't speak to me in that tone," responded Hood. "This was your breakfast, not mine; you needn't scold me if it didn't go to suit you!

Ah, what have we here!"

He had drawn back a curtain at one end of the dining-room, disclosing a studio beyond. It was evidently a practical workshop and bore traces of recent use. Deering pa.s.sed him and strode toward an easel that supported a canvas on which the paint was still wet. He cried out in astonishment:

"That's the moon girl--that's the girl I talked to last night--clown clothes and all! She's sitting on the wall there just as I found her."

"A sophisticated brush; no amateur's job," Hood muttered, squinting at the canvas. "Seems to me I've seen that sort of thing somewhere lately--Pantaloon, Harlequin, Columbine, and Clown--latest fad in magazine covers. We're in the studio of a popular ill.u.s.trator--there's a bunch of proofs on the table, and those things on the floor are from the same hand. Signature in the corner a trifle obscure--Mary B. Taylor."

"She may be Babette," Deering suggested. "Suppose I call her and ask?"

Hood, having become absorbed in a portfolio of pen-and-ink sketches of clowns, harlequins, and columbines, subjects in which the owner of the studio apparently specialized, paid no heed to the suggestion. When Deering returned he was gazing critically at a sketch showing a dozen clowns executing a spirited dance on a garden-wall.

"She's skipped! There isn't a soul on the place," Deering announced dejectedly.

"Not at all surprising; probably gone to join her model, Pierrette. And we'd better clear out before we learn too much; life ceases to be interesting when you begin to find the answers to riddles. Pierrette is probably a friend of the artist, and plays model for the fun of it. The same girl is repeated over and over again in these drawings--from which I argue that Pierrette likes to pose and Babette enjoys painting her. We mustn't let this affect the general illusion. The next turn of the road will doubtless bring us to something that can't be explained so easily."

"If it doesn't bring us to Pierrette--" began Deering.

"Tut! None of that! For all you know it may bring us to something infinitely better. Remember that this is mid-May, and anything may happen before June kindles the crimson ramblers. Let us be off."

Half-way across the living-room Deering stopped suddenly.

"My bag--my suitcase!" he shouted.

A suitcase it was beyond question, placed near the door as though to arrest their attention. Deering pounced upon it eagerly and flung it open.

"It's all right--the stuff's here!" he cried huskily.

He began throwing out the packets that filled the case, glancing hurriedly at the seals. Hood lounged near, watching him languidly.

"Most unfortunate," he remarked, noting the growing satisfaction on Deering's face as he continued his examination. "Now that you've found that rubbish, I suppose there'll be no holding you; you'll go back to listen to the ticker just when I had begun to have some hope of you!"

"It was Pierrette that took it; it couldn't have been this artist girl,"

said Deering, excitedly whipping out his penknife and slitting one of the packages. A sheaf of blank wrapping-paper fluttered to the floor. His face whitened and he gave a cry of dismay. "Robbed! Tricked!" he groaned, staring at Hood.

Hood picked up the paper and scrutinized the seal.

"S. J. Deering, personal," he read in the wax. "You don't suppose that girl has taken the trouble to forge your father's private seal, do you?"

Deering feverishly tore open the other packages.

"All alike; the stuff's gone!"

Perspiration beaded his forehead. He stared stupidly at the worthless paper.

"You ought to be grateful, son," said Hood; "yesterday you thought yourself a thief--now that load's off your mind, and you know yourself for an honest man. General rejoicing seems to be in order. Looks as though your parent had robbed himself--rather a piquant situation, I must say."

He carried the wrappers to the window-seat and examined them more closely.

"Seals were all intact. 'The Tyringham estate,'" he read musingly. "What do you make of that?" he asked Deering, who remained crumpled on the floor beside the suitcase.

"That's an estate father was executor of--it's a long story. Old man Tyringham had been a customer of his, and left a will that made it impossible to close the estate till his son had reached a certain age.

The final settlement was to be made this summer. But my G.o.d, Hood, do you suppose father--my father could be----"