Europe, cabin de luxe——"

"I don't care if it's de luxe, if it's D-comfortable," he laughed.

This was the beginning of a wonderful game of make-believe, which they played for months. Bob's comedy went into rehearsal at once, and every day when she came home, after hours spent in the theatre, she found daddy laughing over some new scheme he had devised for spending their fortune, when it came. They planned like magii with the magic carpet in their hands, ready to spread before them.

They worked out tours of Europe, they built and rebuilt their country house. They endowed charities for newspaper writers and interior decorators—they planned a retreat for indigent magazine writers and an asylum for editors. Life was a joyous thing, stretching out ahead of them, full of colour and success, and then, on the very eve of the production of Bob's play, daddy died. Bob went through it all, the first night and what came after, like a wraith. The adulation and the praise that came to her were ashes instead of fire.

Six years followed of success. Money, travel, friends, the love and admiration of great audiences came to her, but Bob found life stale. Lovers came a-plenty; she made them friends and kept them, or sent them on their way. Bob had everything the world's wife wants, and in her own heart she knew she had nothing. Generosity was her vice. Anybody in her profession, or out of it, who was in trouble, had only to go to Bob Garratry for comfort or for cash. There was usually a tired, discouraged girl recuperating out at Bob's bungalow, and in the summertime all the stage children she could find came to pay her visits and live on real milk and eggs.

She interested herself in the girl student colonies in New York, and became their patron saint. She found that the girls in the Three Arts Club, and kindred student places—getting their musical and dramatic education with great sacrifice usually, either to their parents or themselves—had only such opportunities to hear the great artists of the day as the top galleries afforded. The dramatic students fared better than the others, she found, for they could get seats for twenty-five or fifty cents in the lofts of theatres, but the music students had to stand in line sometimes for two or three hours to buy a place in the gallery of the Metropolitan. As it was impossible to see anything from there, seated, they were accustomed to stand through the entire opera. For this privilege they paid one dollar. Bob learned what that dollar meant to most of them, an actual sacrifice, even privation. While rich patrons yawned below, these young idealists, the musical and dramatic hope of our future, leaned over the railing, up under the roof, trying to grasp the fine shades of expression which mark the finished artist.

All this Bob Garratry learned, and raged at. She herself donated twenty-five student seats for every opera, and a lesser number for each good play. She interested some of her friends in the idea—with characteristic fervour she adopted all the students in New York, but even this large family did not fill the nooks and crannies of her empty heart. You felt it in her work—"the Celtic minor" as one critic said. Possibly Paul Trent expressed it best when he said: "Behind her every laugh you feel her dreein' her weird!"

PART I

"Mr. Trent, Miss Garratry is on the wire," said the stenographer to Trent, who sat at his desk making inroads on the piles of correspondence, official documents, and typewritten evidence which heaped his desk.

"I told you I couldn't be interrupted," he replied sharply.

"I explained that to her, when she called the first time. She says that if you don't speak to her she will come down here."

He smiled reluctantly as he took up the receiver. "Good morning," he said.

"What is the use of having a lawyer, if he acts like a Broadway manager?" she asked.

"I wish you could see the pile of papers completely surrounding me," he answered.

"I'm not interested in your troubles, I want mine attended to."

"Entirely feminine."

"Yes, it is selfish——"

"I said feminine."

"I heard you. I want you to lunch with me at two."

"I cannot possibly do it," he interrupted her.

"It isn't social, it is business, and it must be attended to to-day."

"I'm sorry, but——"

"Mr. Trent, I assure you it is a matter of serious importance. I feel justified in insisting upon your professional attention for one hour to-day. If you prefer, I will come to you."

Trent's face showed his annoyance.

"I cannot take time for lunch. I'll be there at three."

"Thank you."

He hung up the receiver impatiently and returned to his work. A few minutes before three he set out for the hotel where Barbara Garratry lived. He was annoyed at himself for coming—probably some foolishness which could just as well be attended to over the telephone. He knew the actress only slightly.

He had acted as her attorney in one or two minor cases when she needed legal help. He had found her sensible and intelligent—for a woman. Susceptible to beauty, he had felt her charm, and even promised himself that some day he would take time to know her. She interested him, because all successful people interested him. It was his only measure. At forty he found himself envied by men, his seniors in his profession. He had served as State's attorney, he was on the eve of trying for a bigger prize, but to-day, as he made his way along the crowded street, in answer to Barbara Garratry's summons, his mood was a bit cynical. Life held no locked doors for him—he had peered behind them all, as Father Confessor. Men he found open books, women, thin volumes not worth the reading. To-day he had a sense of isolation from his fellows, a wave of loneliness, almost futility. This "average man," who passed him on the street, had his home, his wife, and children to match with Trent's "bigger issues."

He was invited to Miss Garratry's sitting-room at once. Her maid admitted him, and she came to greet him. He was struck again with a certain poignant quality in her, although her smile was merry.

"I know how furious you are at having to come."

"On the contrary, I am honoured."

"You are unremittingly courteous, considering that you are you."

"Which means?"

"I know in what poor esteem you hold women," she smiled.

"You do me a great injustice," he began.

"You do yourself one," she interrupted. "We're not so bad. However, the fact that we interest you so little makes it possible for you to do me a service."

"I am glad."

She waved him to a seat, and as she crossed the room he found himself wondering whether her floating gown was blue or violet or both. The primroses at her belt gave him pleasure. She gathered up some papers and laid them before him.

"I wish to make my will. This is a list of my possessions and the distribution I wish made of them."

He looked over the list, his eye appraising with surprise her investments.

"You have been very successful."

"Yes."

"You wish me to have this typed, signed, witnessed, and filed with your other papers?"

"If you please. I wish my body cremated and the ashes thrown