BBB 
 
 1M3 
 
 MYRA KELLY
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 *
 
 THE ISLE OF DREAMS
 
 THE ISLE OF 
 DREAMS 
 
 Myra Kelly 
 
 Author of 
 'LITTLE CITIZENS' 
 
 D. APPLETON C& CO. 
 New York MCMVII
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 Published April, 1907
 
 3521 
 
 Co
 
 THE ISLE OF DREAMS 
 
 XT was an imposing house wide and 
 dignified and cool, though one 
 could hardly have called it hand- 
 some. Built in the days before the New York 
 architect had been forced up into the air to 
 find space, it stood upon a piece of land ample 
 enough to allow of a strip of green and a few 
 magnolias before its windows, and, at the back, 
 a larger patch of green inclosing a fountain, a 
 flower bed or so, a tree or two, an arbor, and 
 some garden chairs. The brass trappings 
 about its hospitable door were polished to a 
 dazzling brilliance, its windows were bright, 
 its curtains immaculate, and its grass plots 
 carefully trimmed. 
 
 Wide and dignified and cool was Mrs. 
 i
 
 ff Ssle of ftreams 
 
 Denis also, as she stood upon the steps in the 
 early May sunshine and surveyed the little 
 park across the street. Spotless was her 
 gown, immaculate her apron, and bright her 
 smile. 
 
 " Laylocks ! " she murmured, and sniffed the 
 air. " Laylocks, God bless 'em ! " 
 
 Around the corner from the avenue came 
 the postman, and Mrs. Denis watched him 
 quizzically as he made his erratic and inter- 
 rupted way toward her. Up some steps he 
 went ; down others he vanished ; but always he 
 came back to the sunshine again, and always 
 he came nearer to the calm old house and to 
 Mrs. Denis. The sheaf of letters and papers 
 which he delivered to her was befittingly large 
 and important, and she sat down upon the 
 clean-swept top step to sort them into piles 
 upon her lap. 
 
 "One for Miss Merrill," she counted. 
 " Two for Miss Merrill. One for Mr. Drum- 
 mond. Three for Mr. Drummond. Four for 
 Miss Merrill. And, oh, deary, deary, me! 
 here's one for Miss Merrill in the bold, free, 
 striking writing of a man. They mostly uses 
 
 2
 
 Ssle of ^Dreams 
 
 typewriters and young females to write their 
 letters for 'em nowadays, and when you see 
 the bold, free, striking writing of a man 'tis 
 a very dangerous looking sign. Five for Mr. 
 Drummond. Two for Mrs. Drummond. 
 One for Mrs. Denis that's the milk bill 
 and a very fair collection altogether I call 
 it, except for that bold, free, striking one for 
 my lamb. They'll take her away from me 
 some day, I suppose; but that's life and na- 
 ture, as Denis used to say. Oh, deary me ! " 
 
 Suddenly the park, the sky, and the sun- 
 shine vanished shut out by two tiny hands. 
 
 " Glory be ! " cried Mrs. Denis, making no 
 effort to free herself. " I wonder who, now, 
 would be up to such contrary tricks." 
 
 " Guess ! " commanded a shrill little voice. 
 
 " It's Mr. Drummond," announced the vic- 
 tim, " and fie for shame, sir, fie for shame." 
 
 " It ain't Mr. Drummond. Don't you 
 'member he went away yesterday ? " 
 
 " Now, Miss Katharine, dear, sure I ought 
 to have knowed your sweet voice. It is your- 
 self, avick." 
 
 " No, it ain't Miss Merrill." 
 3
 
 "Uhe Ssle of 'Dreams 
 
 " Then of course it's Mrs. Drummond, for 
 there's no one else for it to be outside the chil- 
 dren, and they'd never go for to blind a poor 
 old body on such a lovely morning. I'm sur- 
 prised at you, Mrs. Drummond, ma'am, I am 
 indeed." 
 
 " It ain't Mrs. Drummond ! " shrieked the 
 voice in high glee. " She's went with Mr. 
 Drummond and left them babies for us to 
 take care of. It's me." 
 
 And the hands slipped from eyes to neck 
 as a pair of thin little arms clutched Mrs. 
 Denis and a thin little body tumbled over her 
 shoulder and settled itself among the letters 
 on her lap. 
 
 " It's me," announced the shrill voice ; " it's 
 your own little girl, Doris Gwendolin Patricia 
 Denis, and you never knowed me. You never 
 do seem able to guess it's me." 
 
 " Well, maybe I'd remember next time," 
 Mrs. Denis promised. " And now you must 
 take the letters up. Miss Merrill will be wait- 
 ing above for you." 
 
 Doris Gwendolin Patricia allowed herself 
 to be stroked into presentable trim a bow 
 4
 
 Tjhe Sste of 
 
 encouraged, a stocking smoothed, a ribbon 
 adjusted and set out to execute her mission. 
 
 The interior of the house was even more 
 calm and pleasant than its exterior. The spa- 
 cious hall, the wide shallow-stepped stairs 
 with curving balustrade and windows of col- 
 ored glass, the pictures, statues, palms, tapes- 
 tries, and rugs were sources of constant joy 
 to the happy people who lived among them, 
 and of constant envy to those who did not. 
 And it would have been difficult to find a 
 group as contented and as busy as that over 
 which Mrs. Denis reigned and watched with 
 an affection which nothing could alter. 
 
 The house had been the property of old 
 Anthony Merrill, had been by him bequeathed 
 to his son, and by him to his daughter when, 
 at the early age of thirty, he had followed his 
 wife to a happier world and had left Kath- 
 arine, then six years old, nominally to the 
 care of several maiden aunts and bachelor 
 uncles, but really to the devotion of Mrs. 
 Denis, who had been maid, nurse, friend, and 
 comfort to his ill-starred little family. 
 
 Followed a childhood harried by aunts and 
 5
 
 TJhe Ssle of $) reams 
 
 harassed by uncles. Followed a girlhood of 
 boarding schools. Followed womanhood, 
 talent, work, travel. And always Mrs. Denis 
 took care of the big empty house and kept 
 it ready for her darling's brief returns. Fol- 
 lowed hard times of work and struggle. 
 Followed sweet times of success. Followed a 
 meeting with Carrie Sommerville, a friend of 
 Paris study time, married now to a most in- 
 dulgent husband, and the proud mother of 
 two charming babies. Followed an arrange- 
 ment whereby the two households became one, 
 and Katharine by this cooperation was ena- 
 bled to live becomingly in the home of her 
 fathers. Followed then all the beatitudes 
 for Mrs. Denis and for Doris Gwendolin 
 Patricia, a waif whom she had adopted in the 
 years of her loneliness and had named after 
 the several heroines of several novels with 
 which the circulating library had helped to 
 cheer her through many an empty hour. The 
 child adored Katharine as fondly as the old 
 lady did. It was her most blessed privilege to 
 carry Miss Merrill's letters to the big studio 
 which had been old Anthony's library, and 
 6
 
 &sle of ^Dreams 
 
 whose windows overlooked the fountain, the 
 grass, the trees, the flower beds, and the gar- 
 den chairs. 
 
 On this bright spring morning these win- 
 dows were open and the young Chatelaine was 
 leaning out of one and watching the Misses 
 Drummond in the garden below. Doris 
 Gwendolin Patricia placed the letters on the 
 abandoned breakfast table and approached 
 to worship her divinity. The rites were sim- 
 ple and soon performed, but they turned Miss 
 Merrill's attention to her devotee. And with 
 her attention she turned her face, her clever, 
 alert face with its baffling expression, half 
 whimsical, half surprised, which the little dev- 
 otee had been taught to consider the most 
 wonderful face in the world. " Though her 
 mother, God rest her soul," Mrs. Denis had 
 always maintained, " was more of a beauty 
 at her age. But she hadn't Miss Katharine's 
 smile, my dear." 
 
 Doris Gwendolin Patricia regarded the 
 
 elder Drummonds apathetically, the younger 
 
 Drummonds superciliously, but Katharine 
 
 with an idolatry which included in its list of 
 
 7
 
 Sste of Breams 
 
 deities Miss Merrill's voice and eyes and 
 rooms and gowns all the dainty ways and 
 belongings which made her so troublesome 
 and so dear. But it sternly excluded her 
 friends. While Mrs. Denis viewed with sus- 
 picion the bold, free, striking writing of a 
 man, this more ardent spirit warred against 
 everyone, whether man or woman, who 
 seemed to entertain designs upon the leisure 
 or affection of her idol. She detested all of 
 Miss Merrill's customary visitors and re- 
 garded newcomers with aversion. And later 
 on that bright May morning she was sent up 
 to announce the advent of a visitor, among all 
 visitors the one whom she most detested. 
 It was nearly eleven o'clock when she crept 
 in to whisper: 
 
 " Miss Emerton is in the 'ception room. 
 Gran'ma can't make her go away. Will you 
 see her? " 
 
 "Of course she will," a voice from the 
 stairs interrupted, and Miss Emerton thrust 
 herself and her spring millinery upon the 
 scene. 
 
 " Katharine, dear, this queer little mite 
 8
 
 fsle of breams 
 
 would hardly let me come up. But I knew 
 you would never refuse to see me." 
 
 If Miss Merrill's eyes were the mirror of 
 her thoughts, then Miss Emerton was nearer 
 to hearing that refusal than she seemed to 
 guess. But she was not of the hypersensitive 
 type, so she established herself comfortably in 
 a deep chair, waved her guide away, and com- 
 menced in a high-pitched monologue to an- 
 nounce the object of her visit. Katharine lis- 
 tened thoughtfully with her telltale eyes upon 
 her work until the nature of Gladys's proposi- 
 tion caught and held her interest.
 
 II 
 
 you would never do it," Miss 
 Emerton reiterated with a fretful 
 glance round the luxurious studio 
 when, her address ended, a silence had en- 
 sued. " You are too fond of your name and 
 your fame and your glory." 
 
 " Nonsense," retorted Katharine. " I can't 
 see that they have anything to do with the 
 case." And she crossed to the cushion-heaped 
 couch and propped herself comfortably upon 
 it. " I should love to do all those things. Is 
 there anything else ? " 
 
 " Nothing else," replied Miss Emerton, still 
 stiffly but with a slightly softened expression, 
 for Katharine looked small and fragile in her 
 blue painting apron among the cushions, and 
 Miss Emerton was fond of her in a patron- 
 izing, elder-sisterly, disapproving way. She 
 rather enjoyed the sensation of lecturing, 
 10
 
 fsle of 
 
 sometimes even hectoring, this friend of 
 whom nearly everyone else stood in such un- 
 reasonable awe, and she would have been 
 greatly surprised if anyone had hinted that 
 Katharine's forbearance and gentleness were 
 caused, not by a becoming wonder at Gladys's 
 superior mentality, not by envy of her social 
 advantages, but by a wasted pity and an un- 
 merited admiration. 
 
 For Gladys Emerton and Katharine Merrill 
 had entered the classes of a great Parisian 
 teacher at the same time. Both wanted to 
 paint. The great man took a week to make 
 his decision. To Katharine he had said: 
 " Work and you will go far." And she had 
 straightway consecrated her whole life to the 
 work. Gladys's easel had been beside Kath- 
 arine's and the master turned to survey the 
 canvas upon it, and the self-confident young 
 woman before it with inscrutable eyes. Miss 
 Emerton, in the boastfulness of her new 
 French with her old accent, made some re- 
 mark intended to imply that she, too, had only 
 to work in order to achieve, and the old man 
 had answered : " Assuredly, Mademoiselle 
 2 II
 
 Sste of 'Dreams 
 
 must work the world cannot spare her 
 but, might one suggest? at something else." 
 
 Katharine had never forgotten the sinister 
 old face, the circle of inquisitive students, the 
 flush and the shrug with which Gladys had 
 heard her sentence. To Gladys it only meant 
 that she was not appreciated by one silly old 
 man in a dirty coat. To Katharine it would 
 have meant the death of all hope forever. 
 And when her return to New York had 
 brought about a renewal of this old acquaint- 
 ance, she had marveled at the courage of the 
 rejected claimant for the gift which had been 
 granted her. Gladys never complained nor 
 whimpered. She even sometimes referred, 
 with a calm courage which brought tears 
 to Katharine's eyes, to the days when they 
 had studied and tried together, but any hint 
 at the difference in their positions left Kath- 
 arine powerless in the clutches of her friend. 
 She stretched a hand to Gladys now and 
 patted that ruffled young woman upon the 
 tailor-made shoulder. 
 
 " Then, of course, I'll do it. Of course, old 
 girl," she promised. 
 
 12
 
 "Uhe Jsle of ftreams 
 
 " I wonder if you will. You are so fond of 
 dropping into attitudes in the center of the 
 stage and of appropriating all the admiration 
 for miles around." 
 
 " Base ingratitude ! " cried Katharine. " I 
 have just made up my mind to renounce all 
 these things for your sake, to go with you to 
 stay with these friends of yours; to leave all 
 my best pretties at home, to be sulky, dis- 
 heveled, and disagreeable; to sit in corners 
 and glower and suck my thumb. But go on 
 with the letter. You've read me only the first 
 sentence. It promises well, you say ? " 
 
 " I thought so when it came this morning, 
 but now I'm not so sure. If you are going to 
 scintillate according to your custom, I'd rather 
 stay at home or go alone. Do you think," 
 in happy inspiration, " that I might ? Say you 
 are too busy to leave town, or something like 
 that?" 
 
 " You must read me the letter," said Kath- 
 arine. " I can't tell you until I hear it." 
 
 Gladys prepared to obey, but there was a 
 pucker of insubordination in her lower lip and 
 a glance of something like jealousy in her eye. 
 13
 
 jsle of Breams 
 
 " ' My dear Miss Emerton,' " she began. 
 " ' My brother tells me that you know the 
 Miss Katharine Merrill whose wonderful 
 paintings are daily coming to be more widely 
 and highly appreciated.' " 
 
 " You may skip all that part," interjected 
 the young person among the pillows. " Go on 
 with the rest." 
 
 " ' Could you not persuade her to accom- 
 pany you on a week-end visit to the Island? 
 The place is, perhaps, at its best during this 
 month, and the apple blossoms are due next 
 Saturday. My mother ' 
 
 " She presides over his household, you 
 know," interpolated Gladys. 
 
 " ' is writing to you both, but begs that 
 you will forego the formality of an inter- 
 change of visits, since she is already estab- 
 lished with me for the summer. Yours very 
 sincerely, Robert Ford.' " 
 
 " I call it a charming letter," was Kath- 
 arine's verdict. " And it comes most oppor- 
 tunely for me. Carrie Drummond and I have 
 lent our studios those big doors open, you 
 know, and make such a jolly room out of the 
 14
 
 Js/e of ^Dreams 
 
 two to a lunatic of a cousin of hers with a 
 mania for entertaining and no place to do it 
 in. I shall like being away from the orgy. 
 They dragged me to the last, but I'll never 
 be taken alive at another. It's different with 
 Carrie; the creature is a cousin of hers, and 
 some one must maintain decorum. So she's 
 coming back from Maryland to do it. But I 
 shall be glad to escape it all." 
 
 " No, no," Gladys urged with a careful dis- 
 ingenuousness. " You mustn't make any sac- 
 rifice on my account. I can accept the 
 invitation and say that you have another en- 
 gagement." 
 
 "Hardly, I think, after that letter. I'm 
 afraid it's a case of united we go or divided 
 we stay." 
 
 " And you will really promise " 
 
 "Not to outshine you? Readily, since I 
 couldn't if I tried. You don't appreciate what 
 a guidebook would call your great natural 
 attractiveness. If only I had your height and 
 eyes and hair! Do you know, oh foolish vir- 
 gin, that with the addition of three celery 
 curls and a flowered bedquilt, you'd be a typi- 
 15
 
 Sste of ^Dreams 
 
 cal Aubrey Beardsley woman? You throw us 
 all into the background." 
 
 "But will you stay there?" Gladys per- 
 sisted. 
 
 "Of course I shall. I shall be the back- 
 ground. I can see the picture now," and she 
 regarded her friend through narrowed eyelids 
 with abstracted gaze. " Listen ! I'll describe 
 it to you. The Central Female Figure grace- 
 fully coiled on a rock under a parasol and a 
 shady tree. Beside her the Central Male Fig- 
 ure, merely sketched in at present but already 
 showing interesting elements. The Back- 
 ground repeating motif of Foreground, 
 shows the friend of C. F. F. and the brother 
 of C. M. F. both very small and hazy un- 
 der a smaller parasol and a blighted tree." 
 
 Gladys showed little interest in the portrait 
 group. Her unsteady attention had already 
 fallen upon another aspect. 
 
 " And you really think that we ought to 
 go?" she asked. "That they really want 
 us?" 
 
 " Most likely not," laughed Katharine. 
 " Hospitality may be an insanity with him, as 
 16
 
 TJho jsle of ^Dreams 
 
 it is with Carrie's awful cousin. O Gladys, 
 Gladys dear," she went on earnestly, "the 
 world is a much kinder place than you think, 
 and the people in it are kinder, too. Of 
 course Mr. Ford wants us you at least be- 
 cause his brother does. But why drag me in?" 
 
 " I can't imagine," Gladys mused with a 
 startling frankness, crossing to the open win- 
 dow and looking fretfully down upon the gar- 
 den. The surety of her self-conceit was grow- 
 ing less than sure. She had always ignored 
 any charms which were not exemplified in her 
 own aristocratic if somewhat acidulated ap- 
 pearance, but it was being borne in upon her 
 now that there was a winsomeness, a cheeri- 
 ness, and an unaffected trustfulness about 
 Katharine Merrill which combined danger- 
 ously with her admittedly great talent and her 
 very evident youth. And Gladys had no inten- 
 tion of being outshone. 
 
 "But you can't help being yourself," she 
 went on crossly. " And people have such a 
 way of taking to you when they meet you 
 first. Of course it is because you are sup- 
 posed to be a romantic figure young and 
 17
 
 "Uhe Ssle of *D reams 
 
 alone in the world and all that sort of thing. 
 But I must say I don't see what you have to 
 complain of. Everyone in this house is de- 
 voted to you, you are popular, free as air, 
 and your pictures " 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know," Katharine cried, fol- 
 lowing her to the window, all compunction 
 now, though Gladys in this particular mood 
 was particularly hard to bear. " I know 
 everyone is dear to me. See how good you 
 are ! I was just wondering how I could es- 
 cape the hospitable cousin, and you came in 
 with this delightful plan." 
 
 "Oh, it wouldn't be delightful for you! 
 The Fords are greatly prejudiced against the 
 public woman." 
 
 " All the better for Backgrounds, my dear. 
 Think how they will regard a sulky public 
 woman ! " 
 
 " Could you," suggested Miss Emerton, 
 turning to her hostess, "could you, perhaps, 
 manage a cigarette ? " 
 
 " I might if you would like to spend the 
 rest of the time in smoothing my fevered pil- 
 low and shaking out my restless brow. One 
 18
 
 "Uho ysfe of ^Dreams 
 
 infers that they disapprove of cigarettes. I'll 
 sacrifice my vanity to your love, but not, sweet 
 maid, my health. And now, is it decided ? " 
 
 " Yes, if you will be " 
 
 " Stupid ? " 
 
 " Yes, and " 
 
 " Disagreeable ? " 
 
 "Yes, and " 
 
 " If I'll sit in dark corners with the host 
 person while you disport with the brother?" 
 
 " But he is very nice. Quite as nice as the 
 brother. Nicer, perhaps. Of course Jack is 
 my friend, but I don't want to slight the other. 
 He is the host, as you say, and rather charm- 
 ing. In fact well, to put it plainly you 
 
 " I see that you don't know your own 
 mind," laughed Katharine. "In which case 
 you don't care much for either. Just give me 
 a hint when you feel up to it. And now for 
 details. Where do they live? Where is this 
 island ? " 
 
 "Off the Connecticut shore. Robert Ford 
 owns it all and lives there in the dearest of 
 rambling houses crammed with all sorts of 
 19
 
 Ssle of ^Dreams 
 
 things he gathered in ' furrin parts.' He's 
 been twice round the world. There's a sea 
 wall in front and quaint gardens behind. I 
 spent a Sunday afternoon there last winter, 
 and it was all delightful, even in the snow." 
 
 " It surely sounds alluring. Are there any 
 boats ? May I take my yachting things ? " 
 
 " Are they old ? " 
 
 " As time." 
 
 " Then take them. There may be boats, 
 and / might take the frock I got this year 
 for Nassau." 
 
 " And the people ? In the words of the in- 
 telligence office, how many in family ? " 
 
 " Three. The mother and the two sons." 
 
 " None of whom will approve of me," com- 
 mented Katharine ruefully. " Well, the lime- 
 light there won't blind me. But we'll go. It 
 will be a healthy experience for me. And in 
 the country one can keep away from people so 
 easily. I might even take my paints and 
 things and do a little sketching." 
 
 "Then I won't go. That would be the 
 worst thing you could possibly do. To paint ! 
 to be a genius there before their very eyes ! " 
 20
 
 Ssle of breams 
 
 " All right," said the patient Katharine, " I 
 won't. I'll suck my thumb until you seal one 
 brother with your favor. Then I shall try to 
 be a comfort to the other. One could almost 
 make a poem out of that. Other and brother, 
 you know." 
 
 21
 
 Ill 
 
 OFF the southern shore of Connecti- 
 cut there are several small islands, 
 well wooded, fertile, and pictur- 
 esquely separated from one another and from 
 the mainland by bays and coves of Long 
 Island Sound. Some are used by the Govern- 
 ment as lighthouse stations, some are too wild 
 or too small to warrant cultivation, some sup- 
 port small but thrifty native communities, and 
 some are appointed as luxurious country 
 homes by people who prefer retirement, natu- 
 ral beauty, and " a life on the ocean wave " 
 to crowded summer resorts. 
 
 Robert Ford's island was one of the latter. 
 It comprised some two hundred acres and lay 
 at a distance of about a mile from the shore. 
 The house was a low, white structure, with a 
 tower at one end, built according to no defi- 
 
 22
 
 Ssle of Breams 
 
 nite school or period, but it was spacious, 
 many-windowed, and perfectly adapted to its 
 owner's ideal of country life, which was to 
 gather together as many congenial people as 
 possible and then, after placing all sorts of de- 
 vices for amusement at their command, to go 
 placidly about his own employments and en- 
 joyments. If these could be shared with any 
 or all of his guests, then so much the better. 
 If not, then not so very much worse. 
 
 And it would be a holiday maker of a very 
 unusual turn who could not find some outlet 
 for his energies. In the house there were 
 books and billiards, a music room, a smoking 
 room, and the well-equipped observatory in 
 the tower. Out of doors there were wooded 
 walks and bordered gardens, greenhouses and 
 orchards, the tennis lawn and the terraces 
 where one could lounge for hours in a deck 
 chair and watch the wide expanse of sea and 
 land and sky, always beautiful and ever 
 changing. A sea wall separated the lawn 
 from the water, and at one end of it there was 
 a boathouse presided over by a very salty salt 
 and boasting small craft of several varieties 
 23
 
 fsle of ^Dreams 
 
 of sail and motor, besides the seventy-foot 
 steam yacht which was the object of intense 
 pride and solicitude on the part of the salty 
 salt. 
 
 If all these resources failed there was still 
 the mainland where, besides the private land- 
 ing stage a short distance from the rail- 
 road station, the discontented one or two 
 could find the garage and a despondent native 
 of sunny France who had been in Ford's em- 
 ployment for nearly two years and who had 
 never, in that time, been known to volunteer 
 a remark or to allow himself any pleasure 
 save that of quarreling violently with Captain 
 Jameson on the details and management of 
 motor boats. Since each disputant confined 
 himself to his native tongue, and since the dis- 
 cussion necessarily bristled with technicalities 
 and profanity, there was no danger that any 
 understanding would arise between them to 
 deprive the exile of his only relaxation. Cap- 
 tain Jameson spoke of his colleague officially 
 and nautically as " Pier " ; but unofficially and 
 in the circle of his family, which consisted 
 of a widowed sister who lived with him in the 
 24
 
 'Uho Sste of %)roams 
 
 upper part of the boathouse, he designated 
 him as " That Dago." And he always trans- 
 shipped a passenger from boat to auto with 
 a chastened sense of having looked his last 
 upon a fellow creature. Pierre, meanwhile, 
 felt that it was but a pitiful postponement of 
 the inevitable to steer his charges through the 
 perils of city traffic or suburban dog and trol- 
 ley, only to deliver them to Captain Jameson 
 and a watery grave. These henchmen, like 
 all the other servants of the household, were 
 absolutely at the command of the guests upon 
 the island, and took orders with a well-trained 
 alacrity from anyone who gave them. 
 
 The Island bountifully fulfilled Robert 
 Ford's promise and his guests' anticipation 
 on Friday afternoon, at which time Miss Em- 
 erton and her friend were expected. Pierre 
 and the car were at the station, Captain Jame- 
 son and the motor boat were at the dock, and 
 Robert Ford was on the platform when the 
 train drew in. 
 
 A slim young woman, faultlessly but unob- 
 trusively gowned, was the first to alight, and 
 Ford was conscious of a moment of rebellion 
 25
 
 "Uhe Ssle of ^Dreams 
 
 as he told himself that he had not come in 
 search of anything so normal and bright-eyed 
 as she. He had known too many artists to 
 expect a really famous one to wear a costume 
 of bright brown with hair and eyes to match 
 and a dash of pink in cheeks and hat. " Now, 
 this," he realized, " is more my sort of thing," 
 as a much-dressed figure was assisted to the 
 platform by an obsequious guard. Amidst 
 clouds of chiffon veil and billows of feather 
 boa he recognized Miss Emerton and hurried 
 to greet her. 
 
 " It was so kind of you to come," he as- 
 sured her. " But Miss Merrill ? Did she 
 change her mind?" 
 
 " No, indeed," gushed Gladys. " Let me 
 present you to her," and Robert wheeled in 
 obedience to her gesture and found himself 
 smiling into the brown eyes. 
 
 A moment afterwards and he had possessed 
 himself of their baggage checks, secured their 
 belongings, and bestowed them all in the auto- 
 mobile. Pierre conveyed the party to the 
 dock and recommended their bodies to Cap- 
 tain Jameson and their souls to God. 
 26
 
 fsle of ^Dreams 
 
 And Katharine's spirits, which during the 
 short journey down from town had sunk to a 
 low loneliness, began to recover their usual 
 cheer. She had found ample time and cause, 
 even in that short space, to regret having for- 
 feited the care of Mrs. Denis and the com- 
 panionship of the returning Drummonds for 
 the very uncertain joy of spending some days 
 in a strange place and with strangers. A brief 
 reflection and a few moments of Miss Emer- 
 ton's conversation had made it clear to Kath- 
 arine that she need not expect much of that 
 young lady's society or attention. But the 
 beauty of the woods and fields through which 
 the train had passed consoled her somewhat, 
 and her first surprised impression of Ford 
 further reassured her. She had evolved a 
 portrait of her host as unlike the reality as 
 she was unlike his ideal artist. She had not 
 been prepared for a well-knit, athletic figure, 
 a face grave and almost stern, but capable of 
 a smile of such kindliness, wisdom, and enjoy- 
 ment as made her feel that Gladys had been 
 understating the case when she described the 
 host as " nearly as charming as his brother." 
 3 27
 
 fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 Once on the water, she was further com- 
 forted and repaid a thousandfold. The Isl- 
 and, growing every moment clearer as they 
 approached it, seemed the very embodiment 
 of the spring which was making such pitiful 
 pleas for a hearing in the crowded city. Here 
 it was riotous yet gentle enthroned yet 
 shrinking. The transparent green of grass, 
 the pink of apple trees, the warm brown of 
 new-plowed earth, the shining blue of sky 
 and sea filled Katharine's eyes with delight 
 and pride. For here were the powers she 
 served nature and color and light! And 
 straightway she forgot the reason of her be- 
 ing there. She forgot her companions, her 
 role, her very self, and only remembered that 
 she was a servant greatly blessed and that 
 there was still work for her to do in the beau- 
 tiful kingdom of her rulers. 
 
 The very wind summoned her. Sweet of 
 flower and earth and wave, it blew across her 
 face, loosening little tendrils of her sunny 
 hair and bearing her memory back to Brittany 
 and three springs ago. How hard she had 
 worked and how happily! 
 28
 
 fsle of ^Dreams 
 
 The same wind was flapping and snapping 
 through Miss Emerton's flying jib and top- 
 sails, and she was so preoccupied with her 
 unruly rigging that Ford thought it kinder to 
 desist even from the very desultory conver- 
 sation with which they had beguiled thus 
 much of the way. An unusually vicious on- 
 slaught drove Gladys to the cabin and a 
 looking glass, and Ford turned to his other 
 guest. 
 
 " It is nearly over now," he began ; " you 
 can see the house. That long white one on 
 the hill." 
 
 "I can see no other," she said, and Ford 
 liked the clear-cut enunciation with which she 
 said it, and recognized the influence of French 
 sojourn in the precision of her consonants. 
 " Are you an Alexander Selkirk, monarch of 
 all you survey? The feeling must be intoxi- 
 cating." 
 
 " It should not be. Two hundred acres are 
 really not overwhelming. Though I grant 
 you that having it all in one tight little island 
 is a great advantage." 
 
 " It is the heart of the whole thing," cried 
 29
 
 "Uhe fslo of 'Dreams 
 
 Katharine. " It is almost like the very Good 
 Place we are told about, where ' moths do 
 not break in nor steal, nor thieves grow 
 rusty.' " 
 
 " But as to being monarch of it all, I'm not 
 so sure," he laughed, as a white figure ap- 
 peared upon the terrace and commenced to 
 descend the path leading to the boathouse. 
 " I may be that in name, but there's the pres- 
 ent regent, my mother." 
 
 She was waiting for them when they disem- 
 barked, and Katharine found no violent dis- 
 play of disapprobation in her greeting nor in 
 that of the other son who stood beside her, 
 and who took such evident pride and pleasure 
 in her dainty and surprising youthfulness. 
 The Ford trio, in fact, seemed frankly de- 
 lighted with one another. Katharine, as the 
 whole group made its leisurely way to the 
 house, saw the lady slip her hand into that 
 of her elder son quite as a matter of course 
 and habit. 
 
 Tea ensued. The guests were shown to 
 their rooms, and could hardly make up their 
 minds to leave those bowers of mahogany and 
 30
 
 fstff of ftreams 
 
 chintz, where every window framed a picture, 
 where flowers abounded, and a bright-faced 
 maid ministered unto them. 
 
 Down in the wide living room the Fords 
 were waiting and beguiling the time with con- 
 versation. 
 
 "I give you my word," Robert repeated, 
 " that I never was more surprised in my life. 
 Why, she's just like any other of the nicest 
 girls we know. The sort of girl one's friends 
 have for sisters. There are numbers of 
 people we might have had to meet her if I 
 had only known. What do you think of her, 
 mother ? " 
 
 " That she has designs upon us, of 
 course," laughed Jack. " Doesn't she al- 
 ways think that of every female between six 
 and sixty." 
 
 " Jack," his mother admonished, " don't be 
 ungrateful. You two boys would have been 
 unhappily married over and over again if I 
 hadn't warned and protected you." And, as 
 Jack collapsed under this charge of averted 
 bigamy, she turned to Robert. 
 
 " Seriously, dear," she was beginning wist-
 
 TJhe fslo of Breams 
 
 fully, when he established himself before her 
 resolutely, and : 
 
 "Seriously, dearest," he interrupted, "you 
 must listen first to me. That poor child " 
 
 "Child!" repeated Mrs. Ford. "She's at 
 least twenty-eight." 
 
 " Twenty-five," Jack emerged from his con- 
 science to amend. " Miss Emerton told me. 
 Same age herself." 
 
 " Just as I surmised/' his mother placidly 
 smiled. " Thirty if they are a day." 
 
 " Her age has nothing to do with it. Jack's 
 thirty and I'm forty, yet you know the dan- 
 gers you shield us from. Well, to go back. 
 That poor child is in six times as perilous a 
 position as we are. Really, you ought to do 
 something about it. " It's ' a subject made 
 to your hand.' She's an orphan with a 
 comfortable income, a house in town, and 
 a very great talent. You grant the talent, 
 I hope." 
 
 " Oh, yes," his mother admitted, " no one 
 can deny that." 
 
 " And I chance to know about the house 
 and income. She can earn more money in a 
 32
 
 Jslo of 'Dreams 
 
 year than many of the men whom one meets, 
 and she is well, you see what she is." 
 
 "If you've forgotten, you'll have another 
 chance. I hear them on the stairs," warned 
 Jack. 
 
 33
 
 IV 
 
 OURING the first few hours of that 
 afternoon Katharine was puzzled. 
 In outward seeming there was little 
 to choose between the brothers. Jack was 
 sufficiently like his brother and sufficiently un- 
 like, and they were both sufficiently brave in 
 controlling their dislike for the public woman. 
 Gladys treated them both with the same jeal- 
 ously careful indifference, and they reflected 
 the indifference without the jealousy. The in- 
 sistence with which Robert proposed that he 
 and Miss Merrill should stroll through the 
 garden and round the island, while Jack 
 should take Miss Emerton out in the canoe, 
 was only equaled by the empressement with 
 which Jack proposed that Miss Merrill should 
 accompany him in his canoe what time Robert 
 should show the gardens and the island to 
 Miss Emerton. 
 
 34
 
 e fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 Finding neither guidance nor suggestion in 
 the face of the Central Female Figure, the 
 Background accepted both invitations, and en- 
 deavored to determine from the resulting con- 
 versations which Ford had succumbed to the 
 elongated charms of Gladys. But the broth- 
 ers were noncommittal. 
 
 Robert, when he led her out into the quiet 
 garden, seemed quite content to bear the heav- 
 ier burden of the conversation. He told her 
 of how, when a boy with his first sailboat, 
 he had landed upon the island one day to 
 build a fire and eat his lunch. Of how the 
 old fisherman who then owned it had showed 
 him its beauties and its advantages, its trees 
 and brooks, and its gently sloping hill. Of 
 how he had made many further visits to the 
 island during that same summer, of his first 
 sailboat: "A cat, Miss Merrill, so overloaded 
 with canvas that I always had to sit on the 
 windward rail before I hoisted sail. I often 
 wonder why I was not drowned. Reserved, 
 perhaps, for the other fate. Well, and so I 
 went to college, then to Europe, then to the 
 four corners of the earth, and for years I 
 35
 
 Sste of Breams 
 
 rarely thought of the island and of my old 
 friend." 
 
 " I know, I understand," said Katharine, as 
 he paused. " One hates to grant any truth to 
 a proverb, but absence does make the heart 
 grow fonder of somebody else. I spent three 
 consecutive years in France, and I nearly for- 
 got Denis." 
 
 Ford started slightly, and the silence lasted 
 for yet a little while before he spoke again, 
 and with something less than his earlier con- 
 centration. 
 
 " I had been at home for a season or two 
 when I chanced to sail in these waters with 
 some friends of mine. I learned that the old 
 man was dead and the place for sale. So I 
 bought it. I had never seen, in all my travels, 
 a piece of land I so much desired. I've de- 
 voted five years to it, and I've found it as 
 responsive, as grateful, and as sympathetic as 
 many a man. More so than any woman." 
 
 "Did you ever devote five years to a 
 woman?" 
 
 " Never could yet, though I've often tried 
 to. But you can't get tired of a thing which 
 36
 
 Ss/e of 'Dreams 
 
 is always waiting for you, always makes you 
 comfortable, never asks for anything and 
 makes the most amazing best of what you 
 give it." 
 
 " It certainly sounds unfeminine," Kath- 
 arine agreed. "But it hardly strikes one as 
 being masculine either." 
 
 " No," he acquiesced, " it is altogether 
 more than human. I heard Jack arranging to 
 show you about, but I want to claim that privi- 
 lege. I really can do it better than he, you 
 know." 
 
 " But Miss Emerton " Katharine was be- 
 ginning. 
 
 " Of course," said the host. " I had nearly 
 forgotten her. Jack shall be her guide. He 
 was very keen about having her out. They 
 are old friends, you know. I've met her only 
 once before. Jack brought out a number of 
 his friends one Sunday afternoon." And 
 Katharine inferred that her post in the back- 
 ground would be shared and enlivened by the 
 companionship of her host. 
 
 It was certainly enlivened. Everything 
 from the gray carved lions on the terrace to 
 37
 
 fste of 'Dreams 
 
 the queer old books in the library had its 
 own story, and he told them well. The trim 
 garden was " after " one he had looked out 
 on for a month from some delightful lodg- 
 ings in a quaint Welsh village where he had 
 gone to fish and had stayed to shoot. The 
 ivy on the sundial was from St. Helena; the 
 sundial itself from a little Italian town. 
 The queerly wrought lamp in the hall, the 
 group of silver cups in the smoking room, 
 the mounted heads of moose and tiger and 
 lion in the hall, the ivories and tapestries in 
 the music room all represented a risk run, a 
 bargain driven, a train or a meal missed. 
 
 Katharine had visited many of the places 
 he spoke of, and they compared memories and 
 impressions and laughed over discomforts 
 which had been hardships when they were en- 
 dured, but were pleasures in retrospect. 
 
 From time to time they drifted into the or- 
 bit of Mrs. Ford, who would join them for 
 some space, whimsically indulgent of her 
 son's enthusiasm, but courteously thoughtful 
 of their guest. 
 
 " Don't tire Miss Merrill," she warned him. 
 38
 
 fsle of ^Dreams 
 
 " You've been dragging her about for an un- 
 conscionable time and at an unconscionable 
 pace. Let her come with me to the music 
 room now. Miss Emerton and Jack are 
 there." 
 
 They were. There was a stiffness about 
 the one and a lassitude about the other which 
 gave Katharine some uneasiness. Had she, 
 she wondered, blundered after all? Was the 
 host destined to bask in the high lights while 
 she and the brother hovered in semidarkness ? 
 
 She was soon granted an opportunity of 
 judging whether such an arrangement would 
 serve to fill the hours agreeably. 
 
 " Ahoy and aho and, oh, who's for the ferry, 
 The brier's in bud and the sun's going down," 
 
 chanted Jack as he emerged from a deep chair 
 and pointed to the reddening west. " Miss 
 Merrill, has Robert left you any strength at 
 all? Are you too tired to come and look at 
 the island's coral strand ? " 
 
 Ensconced in the bow of the canoe Kath- 
 arine set herself to the question which was 
 growing hourly more perplexing and more 
 39
 
 "Uhe Ssle of 'Dreams 
 
 insistent. The athletic young gentleman who 
 faced her from the stern did not look like the 
 hero of an obscure attachment. Also he 
 seemed quite free from yearning thoughts of 
 the two left in the twilight of the big music 
 room. With little apparent effort he drove 
 his craft through the long shadows and pale 
 sunlight close to the shore. 
 
 " It's the jolliest place in the world, Miss 
 Merrill," he informed her, with a vigor of 
 which jealousy should have made him in- 
 capable. "Just the jolliest place in the 
 world." 
 
 " Surely it is very charming," she acqui- 
 esced warmly. 
 
 " And Robert is the jolliest chap in the 
 world." 
 
 Her acquiescence was less warm, and he 
 went on : 
 
 " Don't believe any of the cynical things he 
 says. He doesn't mean a word of 'em. He 
 says shocking things about, for instance, 
 women. Now, that's all pose. He has lots 
 of friends among 'em, and he's a regular old 
 Sir Galahad about 'em. Do anything, you 
 40
 
 Ssle of breams 
 
 know, to serve 'em. Why, that man is god- 
 father to as many babies and Boston terriers 
 as the President is ! " 
 
 " Some have greatness and godchildren 
 thrust upon them," quoted Katharine. She 
 was beginning to enjoy these people and to 
 see some reason for their devotion to what- 
 ever whether relative or real estate chanced 
 to belong to them. 
 
 "And to hear him talk," Jack went on, 
 "you'd think he'd hate it. But he doesn't. 
 He sends all the babies a Christmas present 
 all alike gets 'em by the dozen every year 
 and all the mothers flowers. He's so popular 
 that if he didn't live out here he'd die of dys- 
 pepsia in a year. Even now the lunches are 
 awfully hard on him. Poor fellow ! " 
 
 Katharine spent a silent moment in con- 
 templation of this pitiful condition and then: 
 
 " Miss Emerton " she began and halted. 
 
 "That puzzles me," Jack admitted. "He 
 would invite her, and now he wants me to 
 entertain her. And there are limits to what a 
 fellow can be expected to do even for the 
 dearest old chap in the world." 
 41
 
 fslo of breams 
 
 " It was he, I may remark, who invited me. 
 Am I also to be inflicted upon you ? " 
 
 Jack's manners were good. He said what 
 the occasion demanded, and was still say- 
 ing it when they sauntered back to the 
 terrace. 
 
 Katharine rather dreaded the dressing hour 
 which would summon her to a tete-a-tete up- 
 stairs, for the brow of Miss Emerton boded 
 ill. But she was hardly prepared for the as- 
 perity with which, as soon as they were in the 
 solitude of their apartments, she was met with 
 the question: 
 
 " What do you mean by behaving as you 
 do, after promising as you did ? " 
 
 A soft answer did not in the least turn away 
 wrath. 
 
 " I'm doing as well as I can," Katharine 
 explained. " You won't tell me which of the 
 two you prefer, so I've been trying to discover 
 which prefers you." 
 
 " And did you ? " 
 
 "No," Katharine truthfully admitted, "I 
 did not. Why can't you be sensible and tell 
 me?" 
 
 42
 
 Ssle of 'Dreams 
 
 " Because you know perfectly well," said 
 Gladys. 
 
 There was a connecting door between the 
 rooms assigned to them. She marched 
 through it now and closed it with a bang. 
 
 Peace was restored by a refractory fasten- 
 ing of Miss Emerton's newest and most be- 
 coming gown. One can forgive much to a 
 rival whose attire has seen its best days, and 
 who is amiably assisting at one's toilet ; doing 
 wondrously with flattened tulle and distorted 
 trimmings. So far did Gladys unbend that 
 Katharine ventured once more upon the 
 question : 
 
 "Which?" 
 
 But the Central Female Figure drew her- 
 self stiffly up to her full height of outraged 
 friendship and pink chiffon and repeated: 
 
 " You know perfectly well. If you can't 
 keep away from him, if you must talk to him, 
 I wish you'd try to discover what he thinks 
 of me." 
 
 " Or when," Katharine added mentally. 
 
 " But I'd rather you'd leave him alone and 
 stay with his brother." 
 4 43
 
 Sste of 'Dreams 
 
 "Which brother?" asked Katharine, with 
 unabated interest, and could find no answer 
 then nor at any time during the most uncom- 
 fortable evening which the spoiled and petted 
 Miss Merrill had ever endured. The pleasant, 
 lingering dinner passed off very well. Gladys, 
 conscious of her frock and of Katharine's 
 sparkled and bubbled and was happy. The 
 host was courteous, the brother charming, the 
 mother affable, the Background repressed. 
 But, after coffee on the terrace, a repetition of 
 the afternoon's episodes and upbraidings 
 menaced the unfortunate Background when 
 Mrs. Ford retired to magazines and the li- 
 brary and Katharine was too tired, after the 
 unaccustomed exertions of the afternoon, to 
 do more than cling to Gladys with a tenacity 
 which earned for her the disapprobation of 
 the general. Of Gladys, who wished to mo- 
 nopolize the brother of her choice, of Robert 
 who thought that Jack wished to monopolize 
 Gladys, of Jack who was beginning to think 
 that Gladys wished to be monopolized by 
 Robert. 
 
 So a quartet sat stiffly among the coffee cups. 
 44
 
 "Uhe Sste of ^Dreams 
 
 A quartet wandered, uncommunicative, out 
 into the moonlit garden. A quartet paced 
 tediously on the wide sea-wall where lawn met 
 shore. And a quartet parted so unregretfully 
 in the spacious hall as to give some show of 
 reason for the surprise with which the painted 
 ladies and gentlemen on the walls regarded 
 them. But these were old-fashioned people of 
 the long ago before the time of electric 
 light, when " good nights " were ceremonious 
 affairs accompanied by cordiality and candle- 
 sticks. 
 
 45
 
 VERY early on the next morning 
 Miss Merrill was sitting with dan- 
 gling feet upon the sea wall. The 
 weariness of the preceding night had gone, 
 and she was blissfully contemplating the 
 beauty all about her and the happy hours 
 before her. For there seemed little danger 
 of boredom while Robert Ford was host. Yes, 
 she decided, as she thought of the people in 
 the quiet house behind her, yes, she liked them. 
 If leisure meant many friends and holidays 
 like these, then Gladys was more fortunate 
 than it had been Katharine's habit to con- 
 sider her. She liked Mrs. Ford. Only to 
 look at her was a pleasure. And her manner 
 was so charming and so sincere! For Mrs. 
 Ford had fulfilled the more happy of Miss 
 Emerton's predictions, and had " taken to " 
 46
 
 "Uhe fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 Miss Merrill. She had graciously consented 
 to overlook the element of publicity in her 
 situation, and had showed her portraits of 
 her two sons made in their youth and inno- 
 cence. 
 
 Miss Merrill liked Jack. She liked the cheer- 
 ful independence with which he maintained his 
 own individuality under the handicap of an 
 older brother, his admiration for this brother, 
 the reverence in which he held his mother, 
 and his partisanship of all things relating to 
 his Alma Mater. The best crew, the best 
 teams, the best campus, and the best fel- 
 lows all belonged to the university which 
 had made him an excellent specimen of 
 physical development and a lawyer of ability 
 and promise. 
 
 She thought she liked the elder brother, she 
 told herself uneasily. But she did not quite 
 understand his manner. Considered as ab- 
 stract manner it was faultless. He was cour- 
 teous, thoughtful, and cordial. That was it. 
 He was too cordial. He seemed to feel that 
 Katharine and he were friends of long and 
 intimate acquaintanceship. And she, under 
 47
 
 "Uhe Ssio of ^Dreams 
 
 the influence of his cordiality and sincerity, 
 found herself allowing him to take for 
 granted a comradeship and a unity of interest 
 which nothing had occurred to establish. The 
 accident of their having visited the same for- 
 eign towns and countries did not explain it. 
 He had been frankly in quest of pleasure. 
 Her travels had all had some bearing on her 
 work, and he seemed no more interested in 
 pictures than in a dozen other pursuits. He 
 had not mentioned her profession, and yet 
 he knew of it. His letter had told her that. 
 If she had found one of her canvases in his 
 house she might have understood his attitude, 
 for she knew that there was something of her- 
 self in everything she painted, and it seemed 
 reasonable to suppose that, having constantly 
 before him the expression of a thought or a 
 mood of hers, he would acquire some faint re- 
 flection of her nature, and she had always felt 
 that a community of interest should bind the 
 owner of a picture to the author of it. But on 
 her way through the awakening house she had 
 searched in vain for any stroke of her brush. 
 His walls showed discretion, taste, and well- 
 48
 
 Zf/tff fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 used opportunity, but no trace of Katharine 
 Merrill. 
 
 Was this bearing habitual to him, she 
 wondered. She must watch him with Gladys 
 and with such other strangers as might be ex- 
 pected. She was hoping that these strangers 
 would not be too numerous as her host came 
 gently up and dropped at her side. 
 
 " I saw you from my window," said he, 
 " and as there is something I very much 
 wanted to say to you, I hurried out. Isn't it 
 a perfect morning? And how jolly it was of 
 you to wear those yachting things ! " 
 
 " So you came out to discuss clothes and 
 the weather ? And before breakfast ! " 
 
 " No. There is really something I want to 
 tell you. Something more than that you bear 
 the clear light of day rather triumphantly, and 
 that we're going for a sail after breakfast." 
 
 " Not really. I am glad. There is nothing 
 I love as I do sailing. No place where I am 
 happier than on the sea." 
 
 " Then you shall be skipper. I shall be your 
 mate nautical interpretation always under- 
 stood and we'll take Captain Jameson for 
 49
 
 "Uho Ssle of ^Dreams 
 
 the entertainment and propitiation of Mrs. 
 Grundy. I'll show you places as beautiful as 
 Katharine Merrill's pictures. By the way, I 
 don't in the least believe that you are Kath- 
 arine Merrill. She is a personage. You 
 
 "A person?" she suggested. "And you 
 got up at this goodly but ungodly hour to 
 accuse me of obtaining board and lodging 
 and great pleasure under false pretenses." 
 
 " You are, perhaps, the Katharine Merrill 
 of reality," he admitted, " but not the Kath- 
 arine Merrill of my dreams. She was a gen- 
 ius who looked like a genius. Could your 
 most ardent admirer describe you thus ? " 
 
 " He had better not try," said Miss Merrill 
 darkly. 
 
 " I won't," said this calm young man, and 
 Katharine was dismayed to find that she was 
 blushing. 
 
 "But what came you out to say?" she 
 asked in hasty change of subject, and then 
 wondered whether she had been more hasty 
 than wise. There was a deliberateness about 
 him which rather alarmed her. 
 50
 
 Ssle of breams 
 
 " I came out," said he, " to talk about Miss 
 Emerton. How well do you know her ?" 
 
 And Katharine was reassured. She tried to 
 persuade herself that she was also relieved. 
 Here was the explanation of the confidential 
 attitude which had puzzled her. What more 
 natural than that he should feel an interest in 
 one as near the rose as she ? He had not been 
 sure of her sympathy yesterday, but now he 
 had come as dozens of other men and women 
 had come to disclose his true state of heart. 
 She was preparing as sincere a panegyric of 
 Miss Emerton as she could evolve upon such 
 sudden notice when he repeated his question. 
 
 " As well," she answered, " as one may 
 know another when one is rather busy and 
 sees the other rather seldom. I've known her 
 for a long time, and I like her immensely, 
 though she sometimes disapproves of me. But 
 I could tell you of ever so many brave and 
 kind things she's done " 
 
 " Presently, presently," he interrupted. " I 
 came out here to tell you of something she has 
 done which you don't seem to have discov- 
 ered. She has fallen in love with my brother.
 
 Vhe fsle of ftreams 
 
 Of course it's his own fault, but there it is," 
 and he turned a ruefully amused face to her, 
 seeming to expect that she, too, would be 
 amused. But affairs of the heart of other's 
 hearts were always rather serious to Kath- 
 arine. Her own admirers she treated with 
 a gay unconcern, but to the loves and trials 
 of her friends she brought a very unsophis- 
 ticated tenderness and reverence. She was 
 not sufficiently du monde to laugh at senti- 
 ment, and the contemplation of the Drum- 
 monds' never-ending courtship made her 
 ready to believe that love had, after all, a great 
 deal to do with making the world go round. 
 
 " I'm very glad," she replied, quite seri- 
 ously, and she resumed her panegyric with a 
 new vigor. " A little softening is really the 
 only improvement she required, and of course 
 that will come now." 
 
 But Ford had seen the throning and de- 
 throning of too many divinities in his broth- 
 er's regard to accept one as definitive. He 
 tried to convey something of this to his 
 companion. 
 
 " I was discussing only her emotional state," 
 52
 
 fsle of ftroams 
 
 he suggested. "Jack's is another matter." 
 And Katharine, remembering her talk with 
 Jack on the preceding evening, sorrowfully 
 agreed with him. "Of course," the elder 
 brother went on, " I asked her out here on his 
 account and because I hoped to reach you 
 through her. For some time I have had my 
 mind made up to meet you. But to go back 
 to Jack. The dear old chap can't help it, you 
 understand, but he has an atrocious habit of 
 flitting like the bee from flower to flower. 
 And no one is more surprised and concerned 
 than he when he finds that the charmer of last 
 month has turned into the bore of this." 
 
 " But Gladys " Katharine was beginning, 
 when he broke in : 
 
 " May be all that you say, though to me she 
 seems a bit intense. But perhaps her very in- 
 tensity is the force requisite to overcome this 
 single fault of Jack's. Mutual improvement, 
 you will observe, since you expect him to 
 benefit her. And how could we better fur- 
 ther these hopes of ours than by removing all 
 distracting elements from their way ? It might 
 be well," with happy inspiration, "to ask for 
 53
 
 Ssie of ^Dreams 
 
 a luncheon basket, and to stay away all day. 
 For you must, in the sacred cause of love and 
 friendship, make up your mind to one thing: 
 it will be your duty to spend all the spare 
 hours of your visit in my society. If it were 
 later in the season we might persuade my 
 mother to accompany us, but she hates to go 
 on the water in anything smaller than that 
 brute of a steam yacht, and in any colder 
 months than July and August. So for to-day 
 you must allow Captain Jameson to under- 
 study her." 
 
 " You are sure," Katharine temporized, 
 "that Gladys won't think it strange, won't 
 object to being deserted by both host and 
 friend ? " 
 
 " May I remind you, at the risk of exhibit- 
 ing pride of race and family, that she has 
 Jack?" 
 
 " Yes, she has Jack." 
 
 " And may I assure you, at the risk of re- 
 peating my true but artless words, that she and 
 Jack are sufficient unto each other? They are 
 old friends; calls, flowers, letters, opera, and 
 that sort of thing. I'm off now to interview 
 54
 
 'Uhe <fsle of breams 
 
 Captain Jameson. The Katrinka must be espe- 
 cially shipshape when the new captain takes 
 the wheel. You'll bring your painting things, 
 of course." 
 
 " Alas ! and woe is me ! I have none. Not 
 so much as a pencil." 
 
 " I might be able to manage a pencil," he 
 reassured her. " And now my duty to you, 
 sir," and he jerked his heel and an imaginary 
 forelock in a comic-opera salute. " I'll be 
 back in a brace of shakes." 
 
 She was watching the gay assumption of a 
 nautical roll in his retreating figure, when 
 Jack Ford came gently up. Katharine noticed 
 that he, like his brother, was in irreproach- 
 able yachting costume. The Island seemed in 
 danger of being depopulated on that pleasant 
 day in May. 
 
 " I thought he'd never go away," Jack be- 
 gan confidentially, when the proper greetings 
 had been exchanged. " There is something I 
 very much wanted to say to you, so I hurried 
 out when I saw you on the wall." 
 
 " Where I don't intend to stay," she supple- 
 mented. " I'm going to build castles in that 
 55
 
 TJhe fslo of 2>reatns 
 
 sand down there," and she indicated the nar- 
 row strip just below them not yet covered by 
 the tide. " I haven't built castles in the sand 
 since I was quite a little girl." 
 
 As he helped her down the rough face of 
 the wall, Jack reflected that she did not look 
 very mature even now, in her blue skirt and 
 blouse with a dark collar emphasizing the 
 whiteness of her neck and a breastknot re- 
 flecting the brightness of her cheeks and lips. 
 But he refrained from expressing this opinion, 
 and only remarked: 
 
 " I'm ever so glad you put on your yacht- 
 ing things. We're going for a sail after 
 breakfast." 
 
 "Are you?" she asked abstractedly. She 
 had found a suitable piece of driftwood and 
 was laying out an elaborate floor plan. Then, 
 still idly, she added : " So are we." 
 
 " We ? " he echoed. " Who ? " 
 
 " Your brother, Captain Jameson, and I." 
 
 " Now that's really too bad of Bobbie," said 
 
 this virtuous young man. " Don't you think 
 
 he ought to consult us all before he makes a 
 
 plan which will separate us? What will Miss 
 
 56
 
 Ssle of breams 
 
 Emerton say? And, by the way, that brings 
 me to what I came out to talk about. How 
 well do you know Miss Emerton?" 
 
 Katharine straightened from her task and 
 looked at him closely. This was no trick of 
 new sunlight. He was certainly the brother, 
 not the host. His fairer hair and his greater 
 breadth differentiated him. But here was the 
 question she had already answered. As she 
 stared, he repeated it. 
 
 " Just how well, Miss Merrill, do you know 
 Miss Emerton ? " 
 
 " As well," said Katharine, in dazed repeti- 
 tion, " as well as one may know a friend whom 
 one has known for a long time but never very 
 intimately. Why do you ask ? " 
 
 " Because I think I can tell you something 
 you don't know about her. Did you know 
 that she's in love with my brother?" 
 
 " That's impossible," cried Katharine sharp- 
 ly. " It's impossible, I tell you." 
 
 "And I'll tell him you said so," grinned 
 Jack. " It will do him good to hear a frank 
 opinion of himself." 
 
 The tide crept into the courtyard of Kath- 
 57
 
 "Uhe fslo of 'Dreams 
 
 arine's castle and began to undermine its 
 foundations, but she only watched it dully, 
 with the piece of driftwood idle in her 
 hand. 
 
 " Are you sure ? " she asked when the 
 last wall had fallen. " Are you quite, quite 
 sure ? " 
 
 " She as good as said so," he assured her, 
 " yesterday afternoon. Don't pretend you're 
 surprised. Weren't you prepared for some- 
 thing of the kind when she accepted Bobbie's 
 invitation? He showed it to me, and I just 
 leave it to you now. Did it sound like the 
 sort of thing she'd care for? Does she look 
 like the sort of girl who would leave town and 
 her dressmaker to see an apple tree in blos- 
 som? I said so to him then. But he only 
 laughed and said he knew more than I did 
 about what he was appealing to. Now if 
 you've known her as long as you say, you 
 know better than that. She never came here 
 to look at the scenery. Not much." 
 
 " The Island has more attractions than your 
 brother and the orchards," Katharine rallied 
 to remind him. " You are too modest." 
 58
 
 "Uhe Sale of ^Dreams 
 
 "Oh, as for me!" he exclaimed ruefully, 
 and rumpled his yellow hair. " She's tired of 
 me. She and I met one another a lot last 
 winter, and we used to pull rather well to- 
 gether at first. But I bore her now. She's 
 after Bob. Girls always give me up when 
 they meet Bob. They all get tired of me in a 
 couple of months. So, if you have any heart 
 or sympathy under that very correct whistle 
 lanyard, you'll come out to sail with me. 
 They don't want us around, you know. Now 
 do they ? " 
 
 And suddenly Katharine began to laugh, as 
 the completeness of this proof of Robert's in- 
 sight into the nature of his brother grew clear. 
 She threw her improvised shovel at an incom- 
 ing whitecap, and set her foot on the ruins 
 of the house of sand. And still she laughed 
 in a queer relieved manner which left her com- 
 panion quite unamused. She climbed back 
 to her place upon the wall and dangled her 
 feet again. But she ceased from laughing 
 when she remembered that Gladys was prob- 
 ably at that moment lost in the details of the 
 Nassau frock, and might be expected at almost 
 5 59
 
 Vho Ssle of 'Dreams 
 
 any time to see and misunderstand the tableau 
 on the wall. 
 
 " I shall do nothing of the kind," she re- 
 plied to Jack's invitation. " Your brother 
 fortunately warned me that the only flaw in 
 your nature is inconstancy. You don't appre- 
 ciate Gladys. You don't deserve this oppor- 
 tunity of getting to know her well." 
 
 " You're right," he agreed. " I don't. 
 You oughtn't to let me have it. I feel that 
 I'm not worthy to spend a whole day in the 
 clear air she lives in. But Bob ! Now Bob's 
 just the sort of man to thrive on it." 
 
 " He is coming," remarked Katharine. 
 " You can tell him so." 
 
 "All right aboard, sir," reported the mate 
 with a repetition of his wonderful salute. 
 "The crew's below and sober, sir or very 
 nearly." 
 
 " Bob," remonstrated Jack, " what will Miss 
 Emerton think of our manners? You can't 
 seriously mean to deprive her to deprive us 
 of Miss Merrill's society for a whole day ! " 
 
 "Oh, thank you!" said Katharine de- 
 murely. 
 
 60
 
 T>he Sslo of breams 
 
 "Gammon," remarked his brother, "pure 
 gammon. We shall start immediately after 
 breakfast the which, I judge from the agi- 
 tation of Bertha in the middle distance, is 
 even now ready." 
 
 61
 
 VI 
 
 ^OBERT FORD combined a blandly 
 cheerful manner with a knack of 
 doing precisely as he pleased ex- 
 actly when he wished, and the officers of the 
 good ship Katrinka were off on the tossing 
 sea before the others of the house party had 
 reached a second cup of coffee. 
 
 It was a heavenly morning and a glorious 
 one. And long before it was time to do jus- 
 tice to Bertha's inexhaustible basket, Miss 
 Merrill and Mr. Ford had traveled farther 
 upon the way of friendship than they might 
 have done in months of drawing-room inter- 
 course. 
 
 Ford had learned how Miss Merrill had 
 
 been, for as long as her memory served, the 
 
 very perplexing ward of two maiden aunts, 
 
 who had promptly made use of her art aspira- 
 
 62
 
 fste of Breams 
 
 tions as an excuse for surrendering a respon- 
 sibility which had always been irksome to 
 them and which threatened to destroy every 
 custom and tenet of their very customary and 
 tenacious lives. 
 
 " And now," continued Katharine, " I am 
 that most pathetic spectacle a female orphan 
 of tender years cast off by her heartless, art- 
 less relations, and having a glorious time." 
 
 " Still, you know," Ford was beginning, 
 when she interrupted: 
 
 " I've adopted a family all of my own. 
 They share my old house with me. They are 
 devoted to one another, have two delicious 
 babies, and are wonderfully good to me. 
 Then there is Denis, my maid she used to 
 be my nurse " 
 
 " Oh," said Ford, " I wondered who Denis 
 was." 
 
 "And hundreds upon hundreds of other 
 friends, nearer or farther " 
 
 " Will you put my name on the waiting 
 list?" he interjected. "Am I eligible?" But 
 Katharine received this with a merest glance 
 of bright eyes, and went serenely on : 
 63
 
 Sale of 'Dreams 
 
 " Who are good to me and spoil me, and 
 take me to their country places in the summer, 
 or come to stay with me in the winter. Now 
 it's your turn to autobiographize. Begin ! " 
 
 " Aye, aye, sir," answered Ford. " But my 
 story, as the mate always says when the men 
 gather in the foc'sle to smoke their long 
 pipes through the dog watches, 'my story 
 passes belief.' I grew up, went to school, 
 broke several bones for the glory of my col- 
 lege, traveled, came home, inherited my 
 father's responsibilities, worked a little, trav- 
 eled again, bought the Island, built the house 
 and waited for yesterday afternoon." 
 
 " I'm glad," laughed Katharine, " that you 
 granted the incredibility of your tale. I hate 
 to choose between seeming rude or idiotic. 
 And I'm not like the immortal White Queen 
 who used to believe as many as ten impossible 
 things before breakfast." 
 
 " Try again," the mate urged, " the pre- 
 scription ran. Shut your eyes and take a 
 long breath. Now, do you believe me when 
 I repeat : ' and waited for yesterday after- 
 noon ' ? " 
 
 64
 
 "Uhe Jsle of 7)reams 
 
 " I'm sorry," said the captain, opening a 
 pair of eyes which did not look so. " Dread- 
 fully sorry, but I seem to be like Alice : I can't 
 believe impossible things." 
 
 " I'll try again to-morrow before break- 
 fast," said the mate. " And on the sea wall 
 if you will be so kind." 
 
 " Perhaps," she replied. 
 
 It was midafternoon when the mate turned 
 to the captain. 
 
 " Go forward, if you please, sir," said he, 
 " and keep a sharp lookout ahead. When we 
 make that next point you'll see the place 
 which reminds me always of your ' Isle of 
 Dreams.' " 
 
 " Do you remember that ? " cried Katharine 
 wonderingly. 
 
 " Yes, I remember it. And now, watch ! " 
 
 The Katrinka rounded a little neck of land 
 and glided into a harbor of Fairyland. 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Katharine, and steadied her- 
 self with an arm about the mast. " Oh, won- 
 derful ! Oh, beautiful ! " 
 
 " Dreamland," supplemented Ford. " The 
 Isle of Dreams." 
 
 65
 
 e Ssle of Breams 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Katharine again. " I'd give 
 my soul for my painting kit. Mr. Ford, did 
 you remember the pencil ? " 
 
 " Aye, aye, sir," answered Ford, with an- 
 other excerpt from the sailor's hornpipe (he 
 had been executing it piecemeal all day, to the 
 surprise of Captain Jameson and the uneasi- 
 ness of his guest, who expected him to disap- 
 pear over the rail at almost any moment). 
 " Pencils in the fo'c's'le, sir. Better go below 
 and choose one." 
 
 Katharine craned her sunny head through 
 the hatch, and then scrambled down with little 
 quick cries of pleasure. " It's all a dream," 
 she protested. "Where did you get them? 
 How did you manage it ? " 
 
 " They belong to a dabbling friend of mine. 
 His pictures are shocking, but his kit seemed 
 decent enough. I feared you might leave 
 your own things at home ; so I borrowed these 
 as soon as you allowed us to expect you. 
 You'll paint me a little picture, will you not?" 
 
 " But surely may we anchor ? " 
 
 " You are captain. You need only say : ' I'm 
 going to toss off a masterpiece ! Lower away 
 66
 
 *<? fsle of ^Dreams 
 
 the anchor, box the mainmast, and make the 
 scuppers tight." 
 
 " Will you, please ? " pleaded the captain of 
 Captain Jameson. 
 
 " Lowered it is, sir." 
 
 " And now, Mr. Ford, if this should chance 
 to be a masterpiece, you may keep it until I am 
 great being dead and then sell it for much 
 gold." 
 
 " When it is sold I shall have all the gold I 
 care for in my crown and in my harp," said 
 he. " What shall we call it this other ' Isle 
 of Dreams ' ? " 
 
 " You're fond of that picture. Was it, per- 
 haps, the only one of mine you chanced to 
 see?" 
 
 " No. I've seen others." 
 
 " But you liked that best?" 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 " Clever person. So do I. It was the first 
 I ever sold, and I can keep myself from vanity 
 at any time by remembering that I never again 
 did anything so good." 
 
 " Wholesome reflection. Wrong, no doubt, 
 but wholesome." 
 
 67
 
 Ssle of Breams 
 
 " I miss it to this day," she went on ab- 
 stractedly. " Some of its touches and details 
 elude me now. I can't quite remember whether 
 the seagulls are two or three. I can't quite re- 
 member the shade of violet in the face of the 
 little cliff. I've not seen it for five years. 
 I don't even know where it is. I haven't a 
 single finished thing of my own in the house. 
 That is what one pays for what the world 
 calls genius, and what one knows to be colos- 
 sal luck. For if one kept all one's pictures 
 in one basket, how could one be a celebrity? 
 They must go out into the world so that one's 
 name may be great in the land and on 
 cheques. When I get too humble about that 
 other thought I spoke of, I cheer myself 
 again by thinking of all the rooms which are 
 just a bit prettier because of me and of all 
 the people who are grateful to Katharine Mer- 
 rill when she reminds them of places they have 
 loved." 
 
 "And what does a celebrity do with the 
 price of her own bare walls ? " 
 
 Katharine watched a seagull out of sight 
 before she answered: 
 
 68
 
 fsle of ^Dreams 
 
 " All sorts of things," and then stopped. 
 
 " Go on," he urged. " What sorts of things. 
 I have a reason for asking." 
 
 " Well," said she, and nearly lost the dab- 
 bling friend's palette over the side as the Ka- 
 trinka rocked with the land swell, " if you will 
 condescend to consider me as a type of the 
 genius I could tell you. Sometimes she does 
 extravagant things, sometimes foolish. Some- 
 times she buys old furniture and new books. 
 Then she tries to buy immunity from the hard 
 times which, nevertheless, she always expects. 
 In one of those moods she undertook the main- 
 tenance of a cot in a babies' hospital. And 
 again she buys things like this yachting affair 
 of which you and Captain Jameson so kindly 
 approve." 
 
 " Not really. You're joking." 
 
 "Yes, really. With the very first money 
 I earned I fitted out The Genius as you see 
 her. She has oilskins, too, and a sou'wester." 
 
 "You buy clothes? I never thought of 
 that." 
 
 " In the present artificial condition of so- 
 ciety," she reminded him, " it has come to be 
 69
 
 Ssle of breams 
 
 expected of one. And an admiring Public is 
 a pleasant even generous provider. You 
 should see the dream of a dinner dress which 
 is the latest form taken by my ' Study in Gen- 
 tle Greens.' That white lace affair I wore last 
 night began as ' Moonlight on Still Waters.' 
 All my things, all my pretties, are furnished 
 by a doting populace." 
 
 " A clever and discerning populace." 
 
 " No. I'm sorry to contradict, but doting 
 is the proper word. Of course I love my Pub- 
 lic dearly, but not all its kindness, not all its 
 praise, can hide from my loving eyes the mel- 
 ancholy fact that the poor old dear is as mad 
 as any hatter." 
 
 "What?" he cried, and fell limply back 
 upon Captain Jameson, who was watching 
 with superstitious awe the translation of the 
 scene before him into terms of paint and 
 paper. 
 
 "As mad," she serenely continued, intent 
 upon her work and calmly oblivious to the 
 effect of her last remark, " as the proverbial 
 March hare. How otherwise can you ex- 
 plain its habits? I spread some paint more 
 70
 
 fslo of Vreams 
 
 or less evenly over a larger or smaller sur- 
 face, and that Public rises up to call me tal- 
 ented, and to give me largely of its riches. 
 Of course it is mad." 
 
 " Once upon a time when the world was 
 young," Robert Ford began, with the detached 
 air of one whose love was loved in those hal- 
 cyon days, "there was a virtue known as 
 Gratitude. It was very beautiful, but like 
 many beautiful things, like white flowers and 
 clouds and women, it was very fragile, too, 
 and very sensitive. So that when the world 
 grew old, busy, and hard, Gratitude faded like 
 the woman, drooped like the flower, wept 
 itself away like the cloud." 
 
 Katharine laid down her brushes and turned 
 to him. All the mockery and insouciance had 
 left her. 
 
 "Once upon a time when a woman was 
 young very young," she began, " the world, 
 which is neither old nor hard nor always busy, 
 gave her a gift. She had never hoped for it. 
 But she had tried for it. She had persistently 
 tried for it living her life, seeing the beauties 
 of the maligned world and trying to show 
 71
 
 breams 
 
 them to others. For she loved the world. 
 And the world was grateful to the woman 
 for Gratitude is not dead and gave the wom- 
 an fame." 
 
 " By George ! " said Ford. " By George ! 
 you make a man ashamed of being an unbe- 
 liever. You seem to have found some of the 
 lost virtue. But you are always finding 
 beauty. And now go on. Did the woman 
 enjoy the gift of the world ? " 
 
 " No ; she was too anxious. It was such a 
 baby fame that the woman carried always in 
 her heart a great fear lest he should die. But 
 he lived. He was not a wonderful baby, but 
 he was the woman's very own, and she loved 
 him. Now he is nearly five years old, and 
 she is more than ever anxious. For a boy of 
 five can't be held always in a woman's arms. 
 He must run about and play. What if he 
 should run away ? " 
 
 " Not a bit of him," Robert Ford protested. 
 " He isn't blind nor deaf nor an idiot. I'll 
 wager he's a sturdy little fellow sturdy of 
 heart and legs whom no designing stranger, 
 armed with a bag of candy and a rubber dog, 
 72
 
 fsle of *Dreams 
 
 could lure from his own gate and his own 
 mother." 
 
 " Thank you," said Katharine huskily ; 
 " you really seem to understand," which was 
 more than could be said for Captain Jameson. 
 Never was an old salt more helplessly at sea. 
 His single and feeble attempt at adjustment 
 was to substitute a bewildered "ma'am" for 
 the "miss" which had adorned his previous 
 remarks. He was puzzled densely puzzled. 
 
 73
 
 VII 
 
 the good ship Katrinka, Kath- 
 arine Merrill master, sailed home 
 out of the golden sunset, Mrs. Ford 
 and Jack were waiting on the little pier. 
 
 " Miss Emerton had a headache," Jack re- 
 ported, without much enthusiasm. " I've seen 
 nothing of her since luncheon time." 
 
 " I'll go to her at once," said the conscience- 
 stricken Katharine. " I should never have 
 left her, I suppose." 
 
 " She was better alone," Mrs. Ford said re- 
 assuringly. " I sat with her for an hour, but 
 she hardly spoke." 
 
 Gladys Emerton with the willowy length, 
 the discontented expression, the celery curls, 
 and the flowery bedquilt, was lying in the 
 deep bay of the window when Katharine en- 
 tered timidly and took her hand. She took it, 
 but she did not keep it long. 
 74
 
 fsle of breams 
 
 "Go away," commanded the sufferer. 
 
 " What happened ? Have you two quar- 
 reled? Was he less charming than you 
 thought? They so often are." 
 
 "You know best. Was he charming? 
 You've been with him for the last eight hours. 
 I wish you'd go away." 
 
 " Robert ! " Katharine gasped. " Robert ! " 
 
 "You progress rapidly," sneered Gladys. 
 "What does he call you Kittie?" 
 
 " Get up and behave like a sensible woman," 
 cried Katharine indignantly. "If you had 
 done it sooner, nothing of this would have 
 happened. Don't you see how you've bungled 
 everything? Get up and dress in your very 
 best, and prepare for an endless tete-a-tete 
 with Robert. I'll take Jack. I could quite as 
 well have taken him to sail if you had been 
 rational. He, too, asked me." 
 
 "Oh, did he, indeed?" asked Gladys, but 
 the tidings did not seem to soothe. 
 
 Now a maid may determine to engage all 
 
 the attention and the leisure of a younger 
 
 brother, but if the younger brother will have 
 
 none of her having mutely set her down as 
 
 6 75
 
 "Uhe Ssle of %)reams 
 
 an unconscionable flirt the charming is like 
 to fail. She may also resolve to slight, snub, 
 and otherwise antagonize a host, but if the 
 host will meet rebuffs with a debonair un- 
 concern, her lack of manner is likely to fall 
 flatly short of its purpose. Katharine could 
 do nothing to redistribute this exceedingly 
 " mixed foursome," and found herself toward 
 the end of the evening supinely submitting 
 to detachment from her duty. 
 
 " Miss Merrill," began Robert Ford, " do 
 you remember our discussion upon insanity 
 to-day? If you will come with me, I shall 
 show you the thing about which I am madder 
 than a hatter, as mad as the proverbial March 
 hare. Would you care to see it ? " 
 
 " How perfectly lovely ! " cried Gladys, who 
 had been included in neither invitation nor 
 glance nor yet pronoun. " I had no idea " 
 
 "Then I fear that it would alarm you," 
 countered Robert with the most caressing of 
 smiles. " You observe that I have prepared 
 Miss Merrill for the disclosure. Perhaps to- 
 morrow you will allow me to explain it to you. 
 In the meantime may I suggest that the grass 
 76
 
 fsle of breams 
 
 is dry and the orchard, in full blossom, at 
 your service, as well as Jack in the extreme 
 of restlessness? Miss Merrill, will you 
 honor me ? " 
 
 And what could Katharine do? As she 
 turned at the door to bend a propitiatory 
 glance upon the Central Female Figure, she 
 noted that two neglected parts of her role were 
 being enacted for her Gladys was glowering 
 and Jack frankly sulky. 
 
 "If that's affectation," said Robert, "they 
 are fools. If it's not, then the sooner they 
 come to their senses the better. Shouldn't 
 you think that moonlight through apple blos- 
 soms would straighten them out ? " 
 
 "Yes, if anything could," faltered Kath- 
 arine. 
 
 At the end of the hall the host unlocked a 
 door and ushered Katharine into a room 
 lighted only by a fire of driftwood in the wide 
 fireplace. He led her to the hearth, and as 
 he kicked the logs into a brighter glow, Kath- 
 arine caught here and there the outline of a 
 picture frame against the dull green wall. 
 
 " This room has been my hobby for the last 
 77
 
 fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 two or three years," he told her. " The pic- 
 tures are all the work of an artist of whom, 
 before then, I had never heard." 
 
 " A modern? " 
 
 " Very modern. To me they are exquisite. 
 I loved them, everyone of them, at first sight, 
 and I find new beauties in them from day to 
 day. In this a picture differs from a woman. 
 A picture grows without changing. A woman 
 changes without growing. A woman, in my 
 experience ' 
 
 " The woman in your experience ? " 
 
 " Is yet to be experienced. But, as I was 
 telling you, I bought this artist's pictures 
 whenever I could find them, and made this 
 room into a miniature gallery, with hangings 
 and lights so that I can illuminate the frames 
 one at a time. I want to ask your opinion of 
 the arrangement. It gives me great pleasure 
 to introduce to you my very first love." 
 
 He busied himself with a switchboard, and 
 a vision of summer sea and sky and land 
 sprang into life upon the wall. For an instant 
 Katharine stood at gaze and then swept across 
 the room. 
 
 78
 
 Sste of *Dreams 
 
 " The ' Isle of Dreams,' " she breathed. 
 " My ' Isle of Dreams.' " 
 
 " In which you will observe that the sea- 
 gulls are three, and the violet on the little 
 cliff is oh, quite beyond words. In it you 
 will also see a most becoming yachting suit, 
 with oilskins and a sou'wester complete. And 
 this " he touched the board again " is to 
 the uninitiated 'A Study in Gentle Greens,' 
 but to those who know, it is ' A Dream of a 
 Dinner Dress.' Here is a white lace gown. 
 The others I can't identify, but they were, no 
 doubt, becoming." 
 
 He touched button after button, and Kath- 
 arine, silent now, absolutely silent, wheeled 
 from square to square of light. 
 
 " May I trouble you," she said at last, and 
 there was a queer catch in her voice " may I 
 trouble you to light them all at once? It is 
 so difficult to count." 
 
 He flooded the room with light, and stood 
 face to face with a woman who shrank away 
 at his approach and began madly to count the 
 pictures on the walls. 
 
 "You're surprised," said he with a laugh. 
 79
 
 Ssle of 'Dreams 
 
 " But you mustn't let it affect you so much. 
 You will find that people all up and down this 
 broad land are collecting your things just as 
 I have done. You told me, you know, that 
 the boy Fame was beginning to run about 
 and to talk to strangers. Did any of these, 
 by the way, endow that crib in the hos- 
 pital ? " 
 
 She had finished her counting, and now 
 stood with her back to the pictures and to him. 
 Her arms rested upon the mantelshelf, and 
 her forehead upon her arms. 
 
 "No," she answered dully "no, thank 
 God, you can't claim that." 
 
 " Your hospitality is overwhelming. But 
 the crib is safe. Even if I should claim it I 
 shouldn't fit into it. But what did you call 
 the picture which made it possible ? " 
 
 " ' Silver Sails Come Out of the West,' from 
 ' Sweet and Low/ you remember." 
 
 " Then I have it. I keep it in my room, 
 because only to look at it is to rest tired eyes. 
 Was there ever such luck ? I have everything 
 you've mentioned." 
 
 Her face was still hidden, but there was a 
 80
 
 fslo of breams 
 
 droop in her shoulders and hips which made 
 her seem smaller and slighter than ever. He, 
 however, was too absorbed in the scene to 
 which he had been leading up ever since the 
 morning to notice the change in his compan- 
 ion. Even her voice failed to warn him as 
 she replied: 
 
 " Or painted. At least you have everything 
 I ever sold." 
 
 "Then," he announced jubilantly, "I have 
 the felicity of combining in my humble per- 
 son your admiring Public, your March hare, 
 and your Hatter." 
 
 " How dared you ? " she demanded then, 
 turning upon him in hot and sudden rage. 
 "How dared you make me your plaything, 
 your hobby, your fad ? " 
 
 " My dear Miss Merrill," Robert, madden- 
 ingly unexcited, replied, "I can assure you 
 that I had no idea that my man I've given a 
 standing order to a dealer in town had suc- 
 ceeded in laying hands on more than a few 
 of your things." 
 
 "You may rescind your order. There are 
 and will be no more. I trust you enjoyed 
 81
 
 fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 this afternoon? That I was sufficiently 
 amusing?" 
 
 " I don't know what you're talking about," 
 said Ford stoutly. "Amusing? How?" 
 
 " Surely it was diverting that I should de- 
 scribe myself to you as celebrity, a genius ! 
 Talk to you fulsomely of the Fame the world 
 had given me Me, whose whole audience is 
 the chance visitor you bring here to you, 
 who has made me what I am ! " And Ford 
 began to understand that the scene was not 
 going at all as he had planned it. 
 
 " Now listen to me," said he, possessing 
 himself of one of Katharine's trembling hands 
 and holding it in both of his. " You are talk- 
 ing nonsense. You must let me explain " 
 
 " Katharine ! oh, Katharine, dear ! " cried 
 Gladys from the hall. 
 
 " Confound it ! " muttered Robert. 
 
 " Quick ; not so much light ! " implored 
 Katharine. And a moment later Miss Emer- 
 ton was regarding the placid tableau of her 
 friend and her host seated one on either side 
 of the hearth in the pleasant firelit room. 
 
 When Jack revealed the art treasures to 
 82
 
 Sslo of %)reams 
 
 Gladys her consternation was louder than 
 Katharine's had been. 
 
 "Why why," she stammered, "they are 
 all of them Katharine's ! " 
 
 " All of Katharine's," echoed Miss Merrill, 
 on her stealthy way to the door. Robert bore 
 down upon her and caught her just in time. 
 
 "I must have a few words with you," he 
 insisted softly in the semisafety of the hall. 
 " You are laboring under the gravest misap- 
 prehension which you must, in common jus- 
 tice, let me clear away." 
 
 " Not now," she pleaded. " I want to be 
 alone. Give me an hour. Excuse me, some- 
 how, to the others and keep Gladys away from 
 me for so long. Then she may come up. But 
 just at first it is so new an idea to me I 
 was rude forgive me. And good night." 
 
 " Good night, Sweet Genius," replied Ford 
 gently. " You are torturing yourself without 
 reason or rather I have tortured you. Be- 
 lieve me, this matter is only at its beginning. 
 We shall find a solution in the morning. 
 You remember we have an appointment on 
 the sea wall." 
 
 83
 
 fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 She placed her cold little fingers in his hand 
 and smiled unsteadily up at him : 
 
 " It is the first time," she pleaded in further 
 extenuation of her outbreak, " the very first 
 time that fate was really unkind to me. I'm 
 not accustomed to being hurt. Again, forgive 
 me. And again, good night." 
 
 Ford was doing battle with a wild desire to 
 gather her close to him and soothe her as one 
 may soothe a tired and unhappy child. But 
 while he debated on the probable result of this 
 procedure, she withdrew her hand with a pre- 
 occupation which told him that hers was no 
 wound for such easy comfort, and that argu- 
 ments would be wasted until she had her hour 
 or even her night of solitude. 
 
 And so, for that hour, Gladys had her will. 
 The stage was hers. Robert's attention, or as 
 much of it as she could detach from the figure 
 he had seen toiling up the stairs, was hers. 
 Jack drifted back to the drawing-room and to 
 Mrs. Ford, who was still, with her calm state- 
 liness and gentle wit, the woman he most 
 admired. 
 
 When the allotted hour was over, Mrs. Ford 
 84
 
 "Uhe SsJe of %)reams 
 
 and Gladys went upstairs, and the brothers 
 retired to the terrace for a last cigar. 
 
 " Your Miss Merrill took the gallery badly," 
 commented Jack. " Why did she bolt ? " 
 
 " My boy," said Robert, " that gallery was 
 a piece of fiendish torture, and I, fool that I 
 am, expected her to enjoy it. I'll explain it to 
 you if you're not too sleepy. But your Miss 
 Emerton why was she so disturbed?" 
 
 " My Miss Emerton ! " cried Jack. " Mine ! 
 Well, I must say ! Mine ! What do you think 
 she talked about as long as she stayed up to- 
 day? You. Who did she come out here to 
 see? You. And who asked her to come and 
 then threw her on my hands ? You. Always 
 you." 
 
 A window opened, and the voice of Miss 
 Emerton rang softly out: "Katharine! oh, 
 Katharine, dear, are you out there ? " 
 
 " Good Lord ! " said Robert Ford. " What 
 next? Isn't she there?" 
 
 Bertha with Gladys and Mrs. Ford in de- 
 corous dishabille were soon in the hall. The 
 complications were evidently rather bewilder- 
 ing to the mother who was unaccustomed to 
 85
 
 fslo of flreams 
 
 guests female and young who vanished 
 alone into the night. Gladys seemed to con- 
 sider the whole affair as a last attempt upon 
 the center of interest. Bertha was alert and 
 unsurprised. 
 
 " Miss Merrill's gone to town. She left on 
 the 10:20 train. I was to tell you, madam, 
 that she had not time to say good-by." 
 
 "But why did she go?" asked Robert. 
 
 " She seemed in deep distress, sir. First 
 she had me call up Captain Jameson, and she 
 talked to him a minute on the east porch. 
 Then she had me help her to dress. She said 
 she had to go home at once. ' No one dead, 
 miss ? ' said I. ' Yes, Bertha/ said she ; ' he's 
 dead. But then, you know, he never lived.' 
 She seemed excited like that, and she was 
 bound to get home. She wouldn't let me call 
 anyone not even Miss Emerton. And when 
 I suggested calling you, sir, she got terribly 
 upset. So I went with her down to the dock, 
 there is a moon, you know, sir, and the cap- 
 tain took her across to the 10:20. He told 
 me he'd go up to the station with her, and see 
 that she started safe. He said this afternoon 
 86
 
 "Uhe Ssio of breams 
 
 when he came up with the rugs and cushions 
 that he had never seen a lady with such a 
 knack for knots. I was to pack her things 
 and send them to her in the morning ! " 
 
 "You will leave Miss Merrill's things in 
 her room, if you please," commanded Robert 
 quietly. 
 
 " My son," began Mrs. Ford, " Miss Mer- 
 rill is a genius and a great artist," and she 
 wondered why he stooped and kissed her. 
 " You cannot expect her to behave as an ordi- 
 nary person would. Let her wishes be carried 
 out. What else can you do ? " 
 
 " I can find her," said Robert Ford.
 
 VIII 
 
 you know, it might be 
 worse," remarked Tom Drum- 
 mond consolingly. " I distinctly 
 remember the last time that your cousin hon- 
 ored us. It was certainly worse." 
 
 " You need not look forward to a next 
 time," remarked his wife as she rescued Miss 
 Drummond, aged five, from the avalanche of 
 pillows which had buried her inquiring per- 
 son, " because there never will be a next time. 
 I have borne all I intend to bear. And when 
 Kate comes home and sees her studio, I don't 
 know what she will say." 
 
 " By the way, where is our rich and gifted 
 neighbor ? Why isn't she here ? " 
 
 " Because she's off somewhere for the 
 week-end. She left a note with Denis. 
 Gone to do her duty by Society, I suppose. 
 88
 
 'Uhe fslo of breams 
 
 Well, why shouldn't she? Society certainly 
 does more than its duty by her. Did you 
 know that she got some ridiculous price for 
 that last misty meadows thing? She's a fad. 
 Her pictures never hang about until people are 
 sick of them." 
 
 " She's a fortunate and a gifted young per- 
 son, that Kate of yours," said her husband. 
 " Very fortunate and very gifted." 
 
 " And very dear." 
 
 " Very dear. I know only one dearer, and 
 she is looking more than common fair to- 
 night." And he surveyed his brisk little wife 
 with the air of satisfied approbation which had 
 done so much to spoil her and had somehow 
 failed quite to do so. " But how comes it, in 
 the absence of our chatelaine, that the dividing 
 doors are open ? " 
 
 " Oh, she lent her rooms to Leonie without 
 a murmur. She said she would do anything 
 but come to the ' swarry,' as Sam Weller used 
 to call an evening gathering. But I don't 
 think we shall be regaled with anything so 
 nourishing as his boiled leg of mutton. Leo- 
 nie is providing the refreshments this time." 
 89
 
 Vhe fsle of Breams 
 
 "Shall we let the kidlets stay up?" asked 
 their indulgent father. " They were very good 
 the other evening when those nice young fel- 
 lows came to see Katharine." 
 
 " Oh, I'd much rather not ! I feel as though 
 I could not see them with the people whom 
 Leonie is sure to have here. I should want 
 to boil them afterwards to kill the germs. 
 Denis will take care of them. They are 
 always good with her." 
 
 " I suppose you're right, but we'll give 
 them some of the ' swarry,' " Mr. Drummond 
 stipulated. " And now I must dress for the 
 mad revel. We must be ready when Genius 
 knocks." 
 
 The sounds of revelry were at their languid 
 highest when a latchkey clicked unobserved 
 in Miss Merrill's door, and a tired, bewildered 
 figure stood in the opening and looked upon 
 the extraordinary scene before her. In the 
 center of her dear, familiar room the quiet 
 harbor to which she had been hurrying 
 through the past three hours of nightmare 
 a solitary candle stood upon a tabouret and 
 shed barely sufficient light to indicate that 
 90
 
 "Uho fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 the place was full of people. Katharine's 
 blank bewilderment gave place to an even 
 more blank enlightenment. She had forgot- 
 ten Carrie's cousin's party! And before she 
 could effect her escape she was pulled forward 
 into the darkness by Carrie's eager hand. 
 
 " You darling," Mrs. Drummond gurgled. 
 " I'll never forget this of you ! You knew 
 they would kill me and you came back to re- 
 ceive my parting breath." 
 
 " I forgot," gasped Katharine. " Oh, Car- 
 rie, come away with me! Come up to my 
 room." 
 
 "The ladies' dressing room," Carrie an- 
 nounced. " They keep running up and down 
 dabbing powder on their awful noses." 
 
 " Then the library." 
 
 " The smoking room," wailed Carrie. 
 
 " Your room." 
 
 "The green room. Several of them are 
 making up there for some kind of a play. 
 There is somebody everywhere, and Mrs. 
 Pettigrew's baby is asleep in the middle 
 drawer of your bureau. Don't jump! The 
 drawer is open." 
 
 7 91
 
 "Uhe fsle of ^Dreams 
 
 " Oh, I must get away ! " wailed Katharine. 
 " And, oh, Carrie, I have so much to tell you ! 
 Where are the babies ? " 
 
 " With Denis. This is the last, the very last 
 time that I will lend my studio to that lunatic. 
 Look at her ! Does she look related to me ? I 
 believe poor old Uncle Robert found her on 
 the doorstep and adopted her. Now watch 
 her she's steering this way." 
 
 " But what happened to the electricity," de- 
 manded Miss Merrill ; " why are they in the 
 dark ? And where " for she was rapidly ad- 
 justing herself to the situation " where are the 
 chairs ? " 
 
 " The lights were in perfect order, but she 
 calls them crude. She brought that candle in 
 her suit case. I forget her precise objection 
 to the chairs, but she banished them and bor- 
 rowed in our names, yours and mine every 
 pillow and cushion on the block. Now smile 
 and smile and be a villain ! Here she comes ! " 
 
 An indistinct yellow mass loomed out of the 
 darkness ; a pudgy hand also yellow de- 
 tached itself, and a drawling voice was heard 
 to soliloquize rather than to remark : 
 92
 
 fsle of %)reams 
 
 " Miss Merrill, too ! Kind ! " 
 
 " Not at all," Katharine murmured. 
 
 " Some of my friends," the voice mumbled 
 on, " have come especially to meet Miss Mer- 
 rill. Bobby," and she turned to her attending 
 satellite, a youth of not more than sixteen 
 blighted summers, " Bobby, tell Smithson to 
 come to me." 
 
 Bobby vanished into the darkness of the 
 room beyond where Katharine's eyes, becom- 
 ing accustomed to the feeble light, could dis- 
 tinguish faint outlines of guests and cushions 
 in irregular heaps upon the floor. The yellow 
 hostess meanwhile delivered herself of several 
 remarks, distinguished more by candor than 
 by t^ct, touching upon the need of " true feel- 
 ing " in the treatment of rooms and furniture. 
 
 "You hardly recognize your little place, 
 Miss Merrill, I suppose. Just a touch from 
 a hand with real feeling was all it needed. 
 You remember how you left it. Look at 
 it now." 
 
 " She can't in the dark," Carrie was begin- 
 ning, when the obedient Bobby returned ac- 
 companied by an oblong patch of shirt front. 
 93
 
 Ssle of breams 
 
 Mr. Smithson was of so brunette a complex- 
 ion that the shadows refused to reveal any- 
 thing more of him save the occasional and 
 very fleeting flash of cuff. 
 
 " Smithson," the yellow bulk of hostess an- 
 nounced, " this is Katharine Merrill. Kath- 
 arine Merrill, this is Smithson. Know one 
 another ! " 
 
 A clammy hand took Katharine's, and 
 a leaden voice murmured conventionalities. 
 Then the hostess, seeing other duties, moved 
 away, and left Katharine in the uninterrupted 
 rays of the pale candle. 
 
 Then did Smithson smack his clammy hand 
 upon his marshy brow and raise his hollow 
 voice : 
 
 " Nay, it cannot be," he wailed. " It is too 
 young a face." 
 
 A memory of the morning, the bright, nor- 
 mal, happy morning, shut down over Kath- 
 arine. She was on the sea wall again; she 
 was hearing again the mutinous and debonair 
 mate : " I don't in the least believe that you 
 are Katharine Merrill." And it was fortunate 
 that Smithson expected no reply to his tribute, 
 94
 
 ffslo of breams 
 
 for none was forthcoming. Not in the least 
 deterred, he continued : 
 
 "Too young a face, I say, to have loved 
 and suffered and worked." 
 
 " It is only in stories," said Carrie, the un- 
 regenerate, seeing that a remark was due 
 and that Katharine would not make it; 
 " it is only in stories and molehills that faces 
 work." But the stranger would have none 
 of her. 
 
 " You are cruel," the wan voice wailed, and 
 Katharine felt that a pair of slushy eyes were 
 studying her. "You have the cruel eyes of 
 Art. They pierce my soul." 
 
 Again Katharine made no answer, and Car- 
 rie was too accustomed to deference to go on 
 with a conversation without its support. So 
 Smithson tried again: 
 
 " When," he broke out, " when did you first 
 find that you had this pow-wow-er? When 
 did you first discover that you were among 
 our Great ? " 
 
 No question could have been more nicely 
 adjusted to overwhelm Katharine Merrill, and 
 Smithson was delighted with its effect. He 
 95
 
 Ssle of ^Dreams 
 
 was evolving other psychic subtleties when 
 Carrie interrupted him : 
 
 "Who's the woman in the portiere?" she 
 demanded. " And how does she keep it on ? " 
 
 " That is Miss Jones," Smithson replied, 
 " one of the freest, bravest spirits left among 
 us. She overcomes all restraint. She chafes 
 against all bonds. She is wonderful ! " 
 
 " She is," said Carrie. " At least her tut- 
 and-simple is. I happened to be near her and 
 the candle simultaneously, and I saw that she 
 is kept from absolute freedom by one hairpin 
 on her head and one brooch on her left shoul- 
 der. I hope she won't overcome any more 
 restraints to-night." 
 
 " She's coming this way, now," warned 
 Katharine. " Tell us, Mr. Smithson, what 
 does she do? What must one talk to her 
 about ? " 
 
 " Do ! " echoed the scandalized Mr. Smith- 
 son. " She does nothing. She simply lives 
 her life as she has conceived it. It is a lesson 
 to us all." 
 
 And then the portiere trailed up to the little 
 group. It was draped, a la Greqne, upon the 
 96
 
 "Uhe fslo of 'Dreams 
 
 most bony and withered of anatomies, and 
 it was held in place, as Katharine's observa- 
 tion corroborated, by a single cameo brooch 
 of a workmanship as antique as its wearer. 
 
 " Oh, Smithson, you here ! " the portiere re- 
 marked. " Horrid rabble, horrid hole ! " 
 
 Smithson had once been a gentleman, and 
 he still remembered some of the laws of that 
 estate. Freedom of opinion was one thing, 
 but this was quite another. Katharine de- 
 tected his embarrassment. 
 
 " Pray don't mind us," she urged, and then, 
 to the portiere : " We regret that you are not 
 more comfortable. These rooms are ours. I 
 am Miss Merrill. This is Mrs. Drummond." 
 
 " Caroline Drummond ! " the portiere ex- 
 claimed. " The illustrator ? " 
 
 " The same," said Carrie. 
 
 " Then I am repaid for coming. Your pic- 
 tures always fascinate me. I often say to 
 Jimmie that if I could write some stuff and 
 have you for the drawings I should be quite 
 content. Jimmie laughs at me ; but he always 
 pretends to laugh when he really understands 
 me best. But those dear lovable children you 
 97
 
 "Uho Jsle of Breams 
 
 draw! So sweet and fat and real. I always 
 feel that I could undress them like a doll, 
 you know. I love dolls. I have six of them 
 at home. But Jimmie laughs at them, too. 
 And now I must have you for my friend. I 
 must, indeed. Let me stay and talk to you." 
 
 Katharine was poised for flight, but Carrie 
 laid a detaining hand upon her knee. They 
 had retreated to a high-backed settle too heavy 
 to be removed even by " the hand with true 
 feeling," and Carrie made place for the por- 
 tiere by her side. But the emancipated one 
 would seem to have spurned all furniture. 
 She walked round about herself three or four 
 times until her trailing draperies were massed 
 to her satisfaction. She then collapsed in 
 studied stages, and, adjusting her hairpin, her 
 brooch, and her pensive expression, she dug a 
 sharp elbow into Carrie's knee, and breathed 
 hard. When she had thus signified the over- 
 whelming nature of her emotions, she gurgled 
 and thrilled inarticulately for some space be- 
 fore she broke into the startling announce- 
 ment: 
 
 "I knew that you and I should meet. I
 
 "Uhe Ss/o of ^Dreams 
 
 knew our souls would merge and flow and 
 that we should be friends." Here her over- 
 worked hairpin resigned and was restored by 
 Katharine, who, in her gratitude for the boon 
 of being ignored, would have done almost 
 anything. 
 
 " Yes, oh, yes," the Turkish corner pur- 
 sued. " Let our souls mingle and weep." 
 
 "I don't have much time for that kind of 
 thing," said Carrie. " My family " 
 
 " Your family ! " shrieked the talented Miss 
 Jones so shrilly that several other depressed 
 revelers turned gloomy eyes upon her. " Do 
 you live with your family ? " 
 
 "I do," said Carrie. "Don't you?" 
 
 " I couldn't. They never understood me. 
 No one ever understood me except Jimmie 
 until I found you." Carrie turned to Kath- 
 arine, and even in the darkness it was impos- 
 sible not to observe that one of her eyes closed 
 itself in a long and deliberate wink. 
 
 "Yes, I think I understand you," she re- 
 sponded. "Tell me more." 
 
 " Mine own people," the misunderstood one 
 pursued, while she forced her hair into a 
 99
 
 Sale of ^Dreams 
 
 ragged knot and transfixed it with the sulky 
 hairpin, " never made any allowance for my 
 moods of high exaltation or deep despond- 
 ency, and I had a sister who was learning to 
 sing. Their callousness toward the bright, 
 delicate soul which was growing up in their 
 midst " 
 
 " Or in yours," murmured Carrie. 
 
 " was incredible. They actually expected 
 me to join them at meal time ! " 
 
 " Tyranny ! " cried Carrie. 
 
 " And I love freedom ! I cannot live with- 
 out it. I am a spirit. A bird " 
 
 " You are, you are," Mrs. Drummond 
 agreed with enthusiasm. 
 
 " So I flew away. I found a kindred spirit. 
 I leaned upon it and was comforted. And at 
 peace." 
 
 " Bully for you ! " cried Carrie blithely. 
 " Bully for you ! " 
 
 Then to Katharine in rapid quotation: 
 " That's all very well for Mary Ann, but what 
 must it be for Abraham ? " 
 
 " His wife," the free soul continued, " could 
 not understand it." 
 
 100
 
 Sste of ^Dreams 
 
 " I can see, even in this dim light, that she 
 might have been puzzled," Carrie agreed. 
 
 " She was so conventional ! So limited ! 
 Only last week she refused again to dine with 
 us. She has a green soul and yet she dared 
 to marry Jimmie. Didn't she know that har- 
 mony between them was impossible when their 
 soul-tones were antagonistic? Why, even her 
 voice was green. And yet she dared to marry 
 Jimmie with his great big royal purple soul 
 and voice ! Mine are only violet pale violet 
 but they harmonize with his." 
 
 " And then you know," Carrie suggested, 
 " your soul is growing darker all the time. 
 That must be a comfort to you." 
 
 " It is," the portiere cried, " my only one. 
 How you understand ! Darker every, every 
 moment ! Beautiful thought ! " 
 
 Mrs. Drummond was preparing herself to 
 bestow other comfort when Bobby, the 
 blighted, came out of the night. " Refresh- 
 ments," he announced in a tone suited to 
 the heralding of a condemned murderer's 
 last breakfast. " What may I bring you, 
 ladies ? " 
 
 101
 
 fsie of Breams 
 
 " What is there? " demanded the spirit with 
 materialistic interest. 
 
 " Turkish and Egyptian, Scotch and Rye," 
 chanted Bobby. 
 
 " Scotch and Egyptian, please," ordered the 
 Bird, while Carrie set out in angry haste to 
 remonstrate with her yellow cousin, and Kath- 
 arine escaped to the more congenial atmos- 
 phere of Mrs. Denis's apartments, there to be 
 right royally welcomed by the two Miss 
 Drummonds, a scandalized old lady, and 
 Doris Gwendolin Patricia. 
 
 Denis's sense of outraged hospitality was 
 clamoring for an audience, and found it in 
 Katharine. Indignation had undone the long 
 training of the public library, and she was 
 Celt, pure Celt, as she demanded: 
 
 " Is it mad entirely they are this night ? " 
 in accents of scorn and Kerry. " There's 
 about eighty of thim in it, an' not a cake nor 
 a pail of cream has passed the door. An' the 
 screeches of thim ! Not laughs, mind ye, but 
 screeches fit to wake the dead. An' it's all in 
 the dark they are, like a Protestant bishop, as 
 the sayin' is. But sit you down, my poor tired 
 
 102
 
 TJhe Ssle of Breams 
 
 lamb. There's plenty of chairs here for you to 
 choose from. Children an' chairs stays with 
 me this night. It'll soon be over now, please 
 God, an' we'll be able to go to bed. For the 
 sand man went by a long time ago, and some 
 of us are sleepy." 
 
 So Katharine held one drowsy child in her 
 arms until the last cab had rattled off and the 
 last heel had clicked away into the young May 
 night which, even in New York, held a sense 
 of spring. Then when the children had been 
 tucked up for the few remaining hours, and 
 when Mrs. Drummond's concern and curios- 
 ity had grown beyond bearing point, Kath- 
 arine Merrill sank into one of the heaps of 
 cushions in her transformed studio and told 
 the story of her visit. Carrie perched upon 
 the tabouret when she had thrown the remain- 
 ing inches of the candle out through the gar- 
 den window and snapped on all the electric 
 lights. Mr. Drummond rescued an uncom- 
 prising chair from the lower hall and stretched 
 his long, cramped legs. 
 
 " You're sure you want to tell us ? " Carrie 
 asked in noble disinterestedness when she had 
 103
 
 fsle of 
 
 seen her friend's face in brilliant light. " Sure 
 you wouldn't rather wait until the morning? 
 Of course I shall have died long before then, 
 but don't let that influence you." 
 ' " No, no, I must talk it out now. Unless " 
 hesitatingly " it is too late. I don't know 
 what time it is or what day it is. Am I keep- 
 ing you two up ? " 
 
 " Nonsense ! " cried Carrie. " Begin." 
 
 104
 
 IX 
 
 U know Gladys Emerton ? " queried 
 Katharine. 
 
 " Horrid prig," was Mrs. Drum- 
 mond's comment. " Doris Gwendolin Pa- 
 tricia suspected that she was responsible for 
 your vanishing. D. G. P. has conceived a 
 healthy hatred for that unbearable friend of 
 yours. Well, and what did Miss Emerton do 
 to you ? " 
 
 " I went with her on Friday, before you 
 people came home, to stay with some friends 
 of hers down in Connecticut." 
 
 " Name and full description of friends," 
 commanded Mrs. Drummond as she fluttered 
 off the tabouret, adjusted a cushion to Kath- 
 arine's head, and fluttered back again. 
 
 " Ford was the name. A Mrs. Ford and 
 her two sons." 
 
 105
 
 Ssle of breams 
 
 " Ages of same ? " 
 
 " Oh, indefinite ! Thirty or forty, perhaps." 
 
 " Names ? " 
 
 " They call one Jack. I suppose his name 
 is John." 
 
 " Name of other son is suppressed because 
 more interesting to witness," Carrie remarked 
 to her husband. 
 
 " Nonsense, I take no interest in either of 
 them. The older brother's name is Robert." 
 
 " A charming fellow, Robert Ford. I know 
 him slightly," Drummond interrupted. " You 
 and he ought to get on capitally together. 
 He's picture mad. I see him at all the ex- 
 hibitions." 
 
 " One of us, Kate ? " asked Carrie. " I 
 don't recognize the name." 
 
 "It may seem stupid, but really, I don't 
 know what he is." And Carrie drew her 
 own conclusions, knowing that when a 
 man's profession or occupation ceases to 
 be a matter of interest to a maid, it is 
 what Mrs. Denis calls " a dangerous looking 
 sign " indeed. 
 
 " He is," said Drummond, " what the pa- 
 106
 
 TJhe Ssle of 'Dreams 
 
 pers describe as a ' capable young financier.' 
 There is a rumor, supported by an office in 
 our building and a staff of clerks, that he 
 works, but I've never heard of his doing any- 
 thing more strenuous than being bored at 
 trustees' meetings and by executors' ac- 
 counts." 
 
 " And what," asked Mrs. Drummond, 
 " could your rich young picture-fancying 
 trustee-executor have done to drive our Kate 
 out into the night and back to the stuffy 
 city ? " 
 
 " He had a picture gallery," Katharine be- 
 gan stiffly, and a dull flush dyed all her face 
 even her ears and her neck were crimson. 
 " He showed it to me ; described it to me to 
 me as a fad of his; and then, of course, I 
 came home." 
 
 Mrs. Drummond arose and gathered Kath- 
 arine into her arms. " The brute ! " she cried, 
 and then to her puzzled husband : " Your 
 charming Robert Ford must have charming 
 taste in pictures. Look at poor old Kate. It's 
 shameful that any kind of girl interested in 
 any kind of art should be supposed But 
 8 107
 
 "Uhe Ssle of 'Dreams 
 
 never mind, dear. He's not worth bothering 
 about the brute!" 
 
 " You are quite wrong," Katharine inter- 
 posed, freeing herself from her friend's em- 
 brace, and then impulsively returning it. 
 " His collection was almost entirely of land- 
 scapes, and painted think of it, Carrie by 
 me." 
 
 " How delightful ! " cried Mrs. Drummond, 
 who certainly had Matthew Arnold's " open- 
 ness of mind and flexibility of intelligence." 
 " How romantic ! How perfectly fine for 
 you ! " 
 
 " Gently, old girl, gently now," Drummond 
 warned her, as he saw that Katharine was on 
 the verge of hysterical tears, and that the 
 touch of Carrie's arms and lips would pre- 
 cipitate the crisis. "Quietly, take it quietly, 
 Katharine. Go on." But his warning was 
 too late, and with a wail of " He has every 
 single thing I ever painted shut up there in 
 a room where no one ever goes," the Genius 
 collapsed, sobbing, into Carrie's arms. 
 
 "It isn't true," cried Carrie, vehemently. 
 " It can't be true." 
 
 108
 
 fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 " But it is," wailed Katharine. " I saw 
 them. He has every one of them. And, Car- 
 rie, do you know what that makes of me ? " 
 
 " It isn't true," repeated Carrie more vehe- 
 mently, but with less conviction, and then 
 added, as if in defiance of a thought which 
 no one had expressed, " And even if he has 
 them, you are just what you always were." 
 
 " But I never knew it until to-night," and 
 Katharine looked desolately round her deso- 
 lated room. "Think what a fool I've been! 
 Think how I've imposed on everyone my- 
 self, you two, everyone! Oh, Carrie, Carrie, 
 did such a thing ever happen to anyone? If 
 you read it in a story you'd think it was im- 
 possible." 
 
 " I think so now," said Carrie, stoutly, but 
 her eyes were wide with hurt and surprise. 
 She herself was an illustrator of children's 
 books, so successful and so busy as to have 
 no time for more serious and permanent work. 
 But all her pride and ideals centered in Kate. 
 Kate so gifted, so calmly aspiring, so far above 
 the shifts and compromises to which less for- 
 tunate workers are forced to stoop. All the 
 109
 
 T>he Sale of 'Dreams 
 
 pride which she might have lavished upon 
 the fulfillment of her own dreams she made 
 over to the gems which her friend wrought 
 so earnestly and happily in the big studio 
 where the elder Miss Drummond and Doris 
 Gwendolin Patricia played intricate "make 
 believes," sometimes helped but generally 
 hindered, by the younger Miss Drummond, 
 while the mother sketched them happily from 
 her nest in the window seat. 
 
 So Katharine's fame had grown as dear to 
 her friend as it was to herself, and so Mrs. 
 Drummond, when she grasped the full import 
 of the announcement, only strengthened her 
 earlier verdict. 
 
 " The brute," she repeated. " The heart- 
 less, sneaking brute." 
 
 " Of course," Katharine continued, and her 
 voice was nearly steady now, " of course this 
 changes everything. I'm not what we all 
 thought. I'm a one man's fad, and he is 
 neither clever enough nor important enough 
 to make the position less than an insult. Now, 
 what is one to do ? " 
 
 " Kill him," suggested Carrie, who was 
 no
 
 "Uhe fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 about five feet high and very fair. " Death is 
 too good for him." 
 
 " There are more lawful ways of meeting 
 the situation," her pacific husband suggested. 
 He was too familiar with the flights of these 
 inseparables to attempt to follow them into 
 the high places of their emotion, and always 
 waited, calmly secure, for their return to his 
 more practical level. " One would be to buy 
 the pictures from him and to sell them broad- 
 cast even at a loss among the dealers and 
 fanciers. Carrie was saying only this evening 
 that there was never any difficulty about sell- 
 ing your things." 
 
 " No, because Mr. Ford's agent bought them 
 all. No one else ever bought or wanted 
 one of them. And besides, I haven't the money 
 to buy them from him. I've spent thousands 
 of dollars of his which I never shall be able to 
 repay. I've dressed and played and lived 
 upon his bounty and his ignorance of art. I 
 have been simply one of his extravagances." 
 
 " No, no," Carrie protested. " Don't talk 
 like that. He was right about the value of the 
 pictures. But, oh, I wish he were dead ! " 
 in
 
 "U/ie fsle of Vreams 
 
 " That would make it worse," Drummond 
 reminded her, " and it's deplorable enough as 
 it is." 
 
 " Poor old Kate," murmured Carrie. 
 "What would you most like to do?" 
 
 " I thought it all out on the train to-night. 
 I shall go to a little place in Brittany. I used 
 to sketch there years ago, and I know the 
 dearest old woman in the dearest old cot- 
 tage who will take me in and be good to me. 
 And I shall paint how I shall paint! You 
 see, I shall be beginning all over to make a 
 name and a fame. But I shall miss you all 
 so ! And Denis ! " 
 
 "Oh, the brute!" ejaculated Carrie again 
 with more vigor than variety. " The stupid, 
 unappreciative, interfering brute. But why 
 do you let him influence you, Kate? Just 
 stay here with us the babies would be lost 
 without you and show him how little you 
 care. You needn't fly off to old women in 
 Brittany because one young man in New York 
 buys too many of your pictures. Stay here 
 and paint some more." 
 
 " No," said Drummond, " Katharine is 
 112
 
 Ssle of IDreams 
 
 right. She couldn't do good work here until 
 this matter is arranged. Let her begin again, 
 without any handicap, in a new place. The 
 foreign salons and exhibitions are her straight- 
 est road to all Ford has kept from her." 
 
 "I wish," said Mrs. Drummond darkly, 
 "that I might have a few moments of unin- 
 terrupted conversation with that young man." 
 
 "Or monologue?" suggested her husband. 
 " You are so wonderful in monologue."
 
 ON the ensuing morning the remnants 
 of the week-end party found them- 
 selves marooned upon the Island. 
 The weather had retreated six weeks into the 
 past and a sullen March sea scowled at a sul- 
 len March sky, while the flowers of yesterday 
 shook dolefully in a rough wind which dashed 
 clouds of spray and rain against the windows. 
 A mile of impassable water separated the Isl- 
 and from the shore and called forth the male- 
 dictions of Robert Ford and the gratitude of 
 his remaining guest. 
 
 During several wakeful periods of the 
 night, Gladys Emerton had pondered on the 
 course she should pursue, and had been un- 
 able to formulate any plausible reason for 
 neglecting a very inconvenient duty. Even 
 her limited power of sympathy told her that 
 114
 
 Vh* fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 Katharine must be suffering acutely and that 
 she, in her role of intimate friend, could not 
 do less than follow and condole. It was not 
 until nearly morning that a satisfactory plan 
 occurred to her. A committee of two should 
 hasten to the sufferer. Robert had announced 
 a determination to find Katharine. What 
 could be more natural than that Gladys, too, 
 should fly with him to the side of her af- 
 flicted one. She could imagine and arrange 
 many little incidents and tableaux in such a 
 mission calculated to arouse his slow admira- 
 tion. Katharine in tears could not bear 
 comparison with her friend's tender but un- 
 disfigured pity, and Gladys rather fancied that 
 her long " svelte " figure would adapt itself 
 gracefully to the support of Katharine's dis- 
 heveled and woe-begone person. 
 
 But the weather had managed an even more 
 desirable condition of things, and Gladys, as 
 she donned a charming morning gown and a 
 no less becoming air of resigned concern, rec- 
 ognized, as she thought, the working of a 
 special Providence in her behalf, and prepared 
 for a whole day of uninterrupted opportunity.
 
 Ssie of 'Dreams 
 
 " And a great deal can be done in twenty-four 
 hours," she reflected. " Katharine never met 
 him until the day before yesterday, and he 
 was perfectly ridiculous about her last night. 
 And she was even more ridiculous dashing off 
 in that melodramatic way. I suppose these 
 Fords will think that I have very peculiar 
 friends." 
 
 Jack's opinion on this point, as upon all 
 others, was unexpressed, as that young gentle- 
 man elected to remain perdu and to consume a 
 meal which was either breakfast or lunch- 
 eon, according as one chose to judge it by 
 time or by constituents in the privacy of his 
 apartments. Neither the half-amused expos- 
 tulation of his mother nor the all-indignant 
 strictures of his brother could move him, and 
 he was still chuckling under his blankets when 
 the other two went down to breakfast and 
 their guest. 
 
 For Robert it was a cheerless repast, al- 
 though Miss Emerton, a brisk little fire, and 
 a bowl of daffodils did what they could to 
 enliven it, and Mrs. Ford seconded their ef- 
 forts with a sedate philosophy which re- 
 116
 
 Ssie of 
 
 mained unshaken while guests and sunshine 
 vanished. 
 
 " Dear Katharine is so impulsive," Gladys 
 gushed. " She's always flying off at tangents 
 and then coming back again. But until she 
 is ready to come back it is always best to let 
 her fight things out alone. I always said that 
 her hypersensitiveness would get her into 
 trouble, and now it has. There she is back in 
 that dreary town alone, while I am here with 
 you," and she presented her hostess with a 
 beautifully made smile. 
 
 " Alone ? " queried Ford. " She spoke of 
 friends sharing her house." 
 
 " The Drummonds," rejoined Gladys. 
 " Such queer people ! It is altogether the 
 queerest household, but dear Katharine is so 
 loyal and so dependent on the opinion of 
 others that she would not part with them even 
 when I wanted her to share an apartment in 
 a really modern part of town with me. I 
 couldn't make her see it. She insisted that 
 she could not leave the old house because it 
 had been her grandfather's; because Denis 
 a queer old woman who used to be her nurse 
 117
 
 fs/e of Breams 
 
 wouldn't bear transplanting; because she 
 loved the garden; and because she couldn't 
 do without the children." 
 
 " The children are Mrs. Drummond's ? " 
 Mrs. Ford inferred. " I remember Bertha's 
 telling us last night that your friend was 
 troubled about a little boy." 
 
 " That must have been a mistake," Gladys 
 answered, and she wondered at her host's agi- 
 tation. "The children are three little girls. 
 Two belong to the Drummonds and Mrs. 
 Denis adopted the other, through a queer 
 craving for something to take care of, while 
 Katharine was studying in Europe. She is 
 the strangest little creature you ever saw. 
 And the affection of this hodgepodge of a 
 family is the only argument she brings to bear 
 against my suggestion of the apartment with 
 electric lights, steam heat, an elevator, the 
 subway station a block away, and a trolley 
 passing the door." 
 
 " I know a man called Drummond," re- 
 marked Ford. " I wonder if by any chance 
 Miss Merrill's friend could be his wife. She 
 is some sort of an artist, I believe." 
 118
 
 T>ho fsle of Breams 
 
 " She illustrates children's books," Gladys 
 admitted, conscious of having made an inju- 
 dicious move, and not knowing quite how to 
 unmake it. " You have met her ? " she asked. 
 "Personally she is perfectly all right, but I 
 don't like her influence "for Katharine." 
 
 " For my part I should be inclined to choose 
 the garden and the children," said Mrs. Ford. 
 " But it seems unusual in one of you new 
 women. I thought you considered such things 
 antiquated." 
 
 " Katharine doesn't. But then you could 
 hardly call her advanced. She and Carrie 
 Drummond play with those little girls until, I 
 assure you, their mentality is becoming affected 
 and they have no true sense of values. You 
 see yourself what a childish thing dear Kate 
 did last night. There isn't a scrap of harm in 
 her, and there are several wonderfully good 
 points about her, but she is certainly imma- 
 ture for a girl who has been thrown upon her 
 own resources for so long." 
 
 Yes, that was it, Robert told himself when 
 he was safe in the smoking room. She 
 was strangely like a child. She had played 
 119
 
 Vhe fste of 'Dreams 
 
 about the Katrinka like a humming bird 
 bright, alert, and quivering with life. He re- 
 membered her as she challenged Captain 
 Jameson to a tournament of complicated 
 knots, and taught him one which she had 
 learned from a Breton fisherman, and again 
 as she held herself erect against the wind with 
 barely a touch of her fingers against the mast, 
 while her whole lithe body bent and straight- 
 ened to the rise and fall of the boat. And 
 her gayety, her frank pride, her almost boyish 
 enjoyment of life and sun and wind and water 
 and motion. He comforted his impatience by 
 reflecting that the very intensity of her grief, 
 the blind unthinking impulse to get away from 
 the hurt and back to the people she loved, ar- 
 gued that the grief would be short-lived. He 
 would go to her as soon as he and Captain 
 Jameson could fight a passage to the main- 
 land, and he would find her ready to treat the 
 accident of his having absorbed all her work 
 as the grewsome joke it really was. On one 
 point at least he could reassure her. The mar- 
 ket value of " Katharine Merrills " was in the 
 ascendant. Some of the earlier canvases had 
 120
 
 Sale of %)reams 
 
 been inexpensive enough, but lately his agent 
 had found it increasingly difficult to persuade 
 owners whether dealers or private collectors 
 to part with even a sketch. And this was 
 not, as he could prove to her, because he was 
 known to be on the lookout for her work, 
 but because its excellence and originality were 
 making themselves felt. He had really and 
 unconsciously done her a service by keeping 
 her work within her reach until she had estab- 
 lished her position. If he could but persuade 
 her to take this view of the matter it would 
 be comparatively simple to find some method 
 of turning this extraordinary accident to good 
 account. 
 
 But she, meanwhile, was suffering torments 
 of self-scorn and self-doubt, while he was 
 shut in on this silly island by a spiteful freak 
 of weather and forced to endure the inanities of 
 a girl Jack had grown tired of. 
 
 It was strange friendship, he reflected, 
 which existed between these two girls. One 
 so artificial, so selfish, and withal so pathetic 
 in her satisfied conventionality. The other 
 such a strange product of a strange child- 
 121
 
 fsie of IDreams 
 
 hood. Such a child she was. Such a woman 
 she might be made. Subjected, as he sur- 
 mised, to the most disillusioning of influences 
 and keeping her illusions ! Going unsmirched 
 through student experiences in foreign cities ! 
 Believing that mankind was still adorned by 
 all the virtues after who could guess how 
 many disappointments and betrayals ! Vener- 
 ating truth and love and honor when they 
 were all out of fashion, and expecting from 
 all mankind the warm and cordial kindness 
 with which she regarded it ! To hear her dis- 
 course of the gratitude and generosity of the 
 world was to believe that the millennium had 
 set in. Ford wondered restlessly how long 
 this faith could be preserved, and how much 
 he, who would have so gladly kept the glamor 
 close and bright around her, had done to 
 destroy it. 
 
 A half hour's conversation with Captain 
 Jameson in the tobacco and paint scented 
 warmth of the boathouse did nothing to re- 
 lieve his impatience. The captain had con- 
 ceived an ardent and outspoken admiration 
 for his yesterday's commander, but was 
 122
 
 Sslo of Wreams 
 
 greatly puzzled by the course of events on 
 the preceding evening. 
 
 " But I leave it to you, sir," he argued. 
 " What can a man do when a little lady, young 
 enough to be his daughter an' smart enough 
 to do what I yesterday see that one do, asks 
 a favor off him. An' Bertha will tell you 
 how pitiful she kept sayin' : ' Captain, dear 
 captain ' she called me ' dear captain ' just 
 like that ' take me to the shore an' let me go 
 home. I can't stay here no more.' " 
 
 " I wish I had known of it," said Robert. 
 " I might have persuaded her to stay." 
 
 " Just what I says to her ; and Bertha says 
 similar. ' Speak to Mr. Ford before you goes,' 
 we says. And she says : ' Captain,' she says, 
 drawing herself up a little, ' don't you know 
 as I am commandin' of the Katrinka for this 
 day,' and she sort of smiles a smile as make 
 my neck swell up here," and the captain indi- 
 cated a stubble grown tract in the region of 
 his collar. " ' You sure are, ma'am/ says I, 
 for a more beguilin' young female I never 
 seen than her in that whitey evenin' rig o' 
 hers. ' Well,' she says, ' an' didn't you hear 
 9 123
 
 "Uhe Ssle of 'Dreams 
 
 Mr. Ford say as how you an' Pier was at my 
 orders an' I had only to ask to have ? ' ' Them 
 is orders, ma'am,' I says, and Bertha, she says : 
 ' Them is always Mr. Ford's orders for his 
 guests.' An' then that young lady turns to 
 me an' she says agin : ' Dear Captain Jameson, 
 this ain't orderin' at all. It's askin'. I'm 
 askin' you to take me ashore. Will you do 
 it ? ' ' Ashore it is, ma'am/ I says, an' does 
 it as soon as Bertha has her fixed. I takes 
 her to the train an' puts her aboard. Pier, 
 he wants to start up steam an' take her that 
 way, but I ain't trustin' her to nobody but 
 myself. An' as we was waitin' for the train 
 to come in she says, kinder shaky, an' I see 
 by the lamps her eyes was wet : ' Captain,' she 
 says, ' be careful of the Katrinka.' ' Captain, 
 to you, ma'am,' I says, ' I will until you take 
 the helm again.' ' Never no more/ she says, 
 ' but here's something I want you to keep to 
 remember me by/ an' she puts a little bundle 
 in my hand. An' then the train took her, an' 
 here's what I had," and the captain, after un- 
 buttoning many layers of coat and knitted 
 waistcoat, disclosed the pocket of a blue flan- 
 124
 
 'Uhe Ssle of *Droams 
 
 nel shirt. From this depository he drew out 
 a long silken cord with a gold whistle attached 
 to it. " You seen it round that little white neck 
 o' hers," he reminded Ford, who stood in need 
 of no reminding, " an' she'd took time to tie 
 it in that French knot I was so took by. An' 
 now, sir," he went on when he had restored 
 it to its place and had risen to his sturdy 
 legs, " I've knowed you a long time an' I've 
 served you true. But I says an' I means, that 
 when you took an' made that little lady feel- 
 er let anybody else make her feel like she 
 couldn't stay no more in your house, you done 
 a bad day's work, Mr. Ford, a bad day's 
 work." 
 
 " It was indeed a bad day's work," Ford 
 acquiesced. " But I never knew that I was 
 doing it until the thing was done. And now 
 I am tied up here for no one knows how 
 long." 
 
 " This gale looks good for all day," the 
 captain gloomily agreed, as he consulted his 
 barometer and took careful survey of condi- 
 tions outside the warm little boathouse. " It's 
 quite a blow, sir." 
 
 125
 
 "Uhe fsle of breams 
 
 Ford joined him at the window and looked 
 dejectedly out. The captain studied the stern- 
 lipped, troubled-eyed face beside him as 
 sharply as he had studied the other barometer 
 or the sky, and something he saw there gave 
 him cause for thought, and thought led him to 
 deliberate speech. 
 
 "Females," he remarked, with a beautiful 
 generality, " is like boats. The best of 'em is 
 the hardest to handle. Take a racer. Look 
 at the build of her an' the rig of her. An' 
 give her her head and what does she do. 
 There ain't nobody on earth can tell you, sir. 
 An' that little lady sure is racer built. We 
 comes home all hands happy and willin' at 
 five o'clock, an' at nine she says she can't stay 
 no more." 
 
 " I'll tell you what happened," Ford volun- 
 teered, glad to find some one to whom he could 
 talk rationally and freely. "Then you'll see 
 what I mean by saying that I didn't know 
 what I was doing until it was too late to stop." 
 
 The captain listened attentively with his 
 wise old eyes on the bowl of his pipe and a 
 judicial twist in all his features. Ford knew 
 126
 
 fslo of ^Dreams 
 
 him too well to attempt explanation or ampli- 
 fication, and the captain's comprehension was 
 as instant as it was concerned. 
 
 " Mebbe it was too late to do anything yes- 
 terday," he admitted, when he had heard all 
 the complications of pride, surprise, humilia- 
 tion, and flight, " but it strikes me it's about 
 time to do something now. She'll be workin' 
 herself up into a spell of sickness if you don't 
 go an' straighten her mind out on these here 
 points as you have explained to me." 
 
 " How can I ? " queried Ford impatiently. 
 " Look at that sea. Listen to that confounded 
 wind." 
 
 " Sho ! " ejaculated Captain Jameson. " Be 
 you goin' to let a little breeze o' wind come 
 betwixt you an' a thing like that what's got 
 to be done? You go git your shore clothes 
 on while the Boy an' me gits the old dory out. 
 Ain't no sea what this little bit o' blow kin 
 kick up as is too much for a Cape Cod dory. 
 What's the time ? " 
 
 " Noon." 
 
 "You want to hurry. Tide turns about 
 one." 
 
 127
 
 fslo of ^Dreams 
 
 " I'll go in these things. Change and get 
 lunch at the club. I'll speak to Mrs. Ford 
 and be with you in ten minutes." 
 
 " Good, sir," responded Jameson, and de- 
 parted into the storm, stentoriously calling 
 upon the invisible Boy. 
 
 The pose of graceful expectancy in which 
 Miss Emerton had draped herself against the 
 balustrades when she detected the approach 
 of her host was wasted upon his preoccupa- 
 tion and shattered by his first question: 
 
 " May I take any message from you to Miss 
 Merrill?" 
 
 "Take to Miss Merrill?" she repeated. 
 " On such a day ? In such a storm ? " and 
 then she trailed her dull-blue draperies down 
 to a closer remonstrance. " You can't be seri- 
 ous. Your brother has just appeared the 
 storm kept him awake all night and has read 
 the most alarming things in the instruments 
 in the observatory. I was going to ask you 
 to explain the barometer to me before lunch- 
 eon." 
 
 " I'm awfully sorry," he assured her, cap 
 in hand, and she noticed from her position 
 128
 
 fsle of 
 
 just above him that the rain was trickling 
 down his neck and that his hair was close and 
 fine. These things had no direct bearing 
 upon anything in particular, yet they made 
 her fiercely eager to keep him with her and 
 away from Katharine at any cost. But his 
 will was adamant. 
 
 Her plan of the night watches occurred to 
 her, and she insisted upon it with a charming 
 eloquence of love and duty and braving wrath 
 of weather for a friend's sake. But he dis- 
 missed it with a half regretful, half amused 
 manner. 
 
 " It would be delightful. But what could 
 you wear? And now if you will pardon this 
 desertion of a guest but I know you will 
 when you remember that I may be so fortu- 
 nate as to reassure Miss Merrill on the matter 
 which is making her unhappy I will report 
 to my mother, consign you to her and to Jack 
 for the afternoon, and say good morning. 
 There is a question of tide which cannot be 
 evaded." 
 
 And Miss Emerton was left in the wide hall 
 and to the realization that she had failed, mis- 
 129
 
 "Uhe Js/e of breams 
 
 erably failed, because of that clinging femi- 
 ninity which she had so long cultivated as 
 her greatest charm and asset. The elaborate 
 gowns in which she had put so much trust 
 had proved her undoing, and she stood in 
 one of the most costly of them all and 
 loathed it. 
 
 Mrs. Ford accepted the announcement of 
 her son's departure with her accustomed 
 serenity. She had learned that Robert and 
 Captain Jameson were a match for any phase 
 of weather of which Long Island Sound was 
 capable. 
 
 " Very well, dear, you know best," she said 
 placidly. " But I think you ought to stay in 
 town unless the storm subsides." 
 
 " I'm going, too," Jack announced, sudden- 
 ly emerging from the depths of a chair and 
 the paper of the preceding evening. " I'm not 
 going to be left here alone." 
 
 " Of course not," Robert replied pacifically. 
 " You will have mother and Miss Emerton." 
 
 " I won't stay," Jack protested hotly. " I'm 
 no entertainment committee. What do you 
 go and ask girls here for if you're going to 
 130
 
 Ijhe fslo of breams 
 
 vacate as soon as they come? I have lots of 
 things to do in town." 
 
 " To-morrow," his brother amended. " You 
 simply can't desert Miss Emerton to-day." 
 
 " I can as well as you. I'll go and comfort 
 the other. ' I'll gaze in her orbits of blue/ " 
 he quoted, " or is it brown ? ' And her hand I 
 will tenderly squeeze' " 
 
 "Boys, boys," their mother admonished 
 them as though they were little children, 
 " don't quarrel. Jack, stop teasing your 
 brother. Robert " but here Miss Emerton 
 floated into the room, and Jack subsided, 
 though not without one last attempt at liberty : 
 
 "If you want me to go with you, Bob, old 
 chap," he volunteered with a fearful joviality, 
 " say the word." 
 
 " No, no," protested Robert, disregarding 
 the pleading eyes fixed upon him. " You are 
 in active charge here. Take care of mother. 
 Make Miss Emerton happy. Take her to the 
 observatory and explain the internal work- 
 ings of such seafaring instruments as you 
 find there. Try to persuade her as is indeed 
 most true " and he turned with gentle cour-
 
 "She fsle of breams 
 
 tesy to Gladys, "that we are very happy to 
 have her with us and that we apologize for 
 everything." 
 
 So Jack and Gladys in the tower trained 
 field glasses and telescope upon the dory, and 
 watched its staggering progress toward the 
 shore, while the exile from sunny France, vis- 
 ibly dejected even at that distance, ran the 
 mackintoshed automobile out on the dock and 
 busied himself with cranks and gauges. 
 
 The little boat lurched against the pier and 
 shot past. But now there were only two black 
 figures in it. The other was running toward 
 the automobile, which was contributing clouds 
 of vapor to the general disturbance. 
 
 ' ' Off again, on again,' " quoted Jack, and 
 laid down the glasses. 
 
 " ' Gone again/ " sighed Gladys, and turned 
 from the telescope. And no one observed the 
 masterly seamanship with which Captain 
 Jameson and the Boy beat and tacked and 
 buffeted their way back to the Island. 
 
 132
 
 XI 
 
 OH, no, sir, I'm afraid not, sir," said 
 Mrs. Denis lugubriously. " She 
 denies herself to all, this day." 
 " Perhaps she will make an exception in my 
 case," Ford responded. " You will at least 
 take up my card." 
 
 " Oh, no, sir, I really can't," Mrs. Denis 
 maintained. " Miss Merrill isn't well and I 
 can't disturb her." 
 
 " But, Mrs. Denis," Robert began, with a 
 smile which went straight to her soft old 
 heart and won it, " I know your name, you 
 see. Miss Merrill told me all about you." 
 
 " Then, sir, will you step into the reception 
 room for a moment. She won't see you, that 
 I know, but come in out of the rain, an' I'll 
 tell you what I can." 
 
 Ford followed his portly guide into the 
 133
 
 "Uhe Ssle of breams 
 
 house which Katharine had declined to ex- 
 change for the elevated apartment and Miss 
 Emerton's constant society. He understood 
 her disinclination when he saw the air of re- 
 pose and dignity with which even the casual 
 and impersonal reception room greeted the 
 stranger, and he knew that he had found that 
 rara avis among New York dwellings, a house 
 sacred to one family and uncontaminated by 
 the occasional and careless lessee 
 
 Mrs. Denis, too, was a rara avis among re- 
 tainers. Her gray hair was smoothly brushed 
 and surmounted by a lace cap, while her gown 
 and apron were of rustling silk. Not since he 
 had visited friends in England had he seen 
 anything like her. And he was unaccount- 
 ably relieved and reassured, though he re- 
 flected that much of the impracticability of his 
 vanished guest was the result of this unusual 
 environment. 
 
 " If she told you my name, sir, it's likely 
 she told you more," Mrs. Denis, with sad dig- 
 nity began, lifting a corner of her apron to dry 
 an unstarted tear. But discovering the apron 
 to be of silk, she substituted a tightly folded 
 134
 
 "Uhe <fsle of %)reams 
 
 handkerchief and continued : " She's told you, 
 maybe, how long I've watched over her young 
 footsteps and the growin' flowers of her mind, 
 but did she, by word or by deed, give you to 
 know that I was to be shut out locked out 
 in the hall while Mrs. Drummond held Ody 
 Colone to her nose an' was the comforter of 
 her affliction ? " 
 
 " Haven't you seen her to-day ? " questioned 
 Ford anxiously. 
 
 " No, sir ; not her, sir. But when I carried 
 up her breakfast I seen her Wreck," and Mrs. 
 Denis blew her nose with infinite care and 
 paused to enjoy the result of this announce- 
 ment before she went on : " Pray be seated, 
 sir. I'll tell you all," and Robert obeyed the 
 suggestion. 
 
 "Friday, but two short suns ago, I packed 
 her for a visit to go as she said to me in 
 her happy way out to meet the Spring. I 
 misdoubted something was wrong when she 
 said she was going with that Miss Emerton. 
 I has my eyes, sir, an' I uses 'em, an' I see as 
 that young lady never comes here without 
 wanting something." 
 
 135
 
 Sale of 'Dreams 
 
 "But tell me about Miss Merrill?" Ford 
 urged. " When did she come back ? " 
 
 " She went away on Friday afternoon," 
 Mrs. Denis responded, refusing to skip one 
 throb of her narrative, " as happy an' as 
 beautiful as the dawn you consider her beau- 
 tiful, of course, sir?" 
 
 " Of course," he acquiesced. " Everyone 
 must." 
 
 " Her mother was a beautiful woman," she 
 leisurely proceeded. " An' she was no older 
 than Miss Katharine when she went the way 
 of all and left that lamb in my care. An' now 
 it's shut out in the hall I am while another 
 holds the Ody Colone to her nostril ! " and she 
 dissolved again into moist self-pity. 
 
 Robert had not braved the perils of wind and 
 wave nor risked the lives of Captain Jameson 
 and of Pierre to call upon a garrulous old wom- 
 an. Yet he accepted the situation with a grace 
 which did as much credit to his cleverness as 
 to his kindness. Such an ally as this would 
 be of infinite value to his cause, and mean- 
 while he was at least in Katharine's house and 
 talking to the person who had known her 
 136
 
 "Uho Ssle of breams 
 
 longest and who loved her most. Encouraged 
 by his attention Mrs. Denis grew biograph- 
 ical of her charge and instructed Ford in the 
 intricacies and treatment of measles and 
 boasted of her sure cure for chickenpox. He 
 learned that to appreciate true and angelic 
 patience he should have beheld Miss Kath- 
 arine languishing under these and other dis- 
 orders, but " brought out of them, praise be 
 to God, with not so much as a pound off her, 
 nor a mark to show she had 'em." The mem- 
 ory of these happy days made her present 
 ignominious position, " shut out, sir, while 
 another holds her head and the Ody Colone," 
 all the harder to bear. She had, still with the 
 keenest enjoyment of her woes and wrongs, 
 reduced the handkerchief to a limp useless- 
 ness long before her remarks grew modern 
 enough to refer again to the events of the last 
 few days. 
 
 " In the flower of her youth and beauty, sir, 
 she left us on Friday, an' last night she come 
 back a Wreck. And to me, pressing for some 
 explanation, she only says, an' weeps in the 
 sayin' : ' Denis, you'd never understand. You 
 137
 
 "Uho fste of ^Dreams 
 
 couldn't understand.' But I understand 
 enough to know, sir, that she's an angel from 
 above, and that them as injures her is fiends 
 an' will reap the rewards of such." 
 
 Here were Captain Jameson's sentiments in 
 another form, Robert reflected, and knew 
 that this time he could offer no explanation. 
 Katharine had been right, and Mrs. Denis 
 would not understand. He felt a great deal 
 less than frank as he rose to take his leave. 
 
 " Will you say to Miss Merrill that I called, 
 that I deeply regret her indisposition, and that 
 I trust she will be so kind as to see me at 
 eleven o'clock in the morning." 
 
 " At eleven o'clock, sir," she repeated care- 
 fully. 
 
 " Thank you," said he. " Good afternoon, 
 and thank you." 
 
 Mrs. Denis, with a grand air, accompanied 
 him to the door, and ushered him out to the 
 still vindictive weather and his waiting han- 
 som. When he had quite disappeared she 
 turned back into the house with a new con- 
 tentment. 
 
 " To-morrow at eleven," she communed, 
 138
 
 "Uhe fsle of breams 
 
 " is a sweet hour for a tryst. I suppose she'll 
 see him in the studio. I must get a flower or 
 two in the morning." And she fell to plan- 
 ning all sorts of aids and accessories to this 
 important interview as happily as though she 
 had never dreaded "the bold, free, striking 
 writing of a man," and all the ills it might 
 portend. 
 
 10 
 
 139
 
 XII 
 
 HMOST beautiful gentleman, Miss 
 Katharine, dear," Mrs. Denis re- 
 ported, when she had at last ob- 
 tained audience with her nursling, " and with a 
 beautiful smile and the most beautiful clothes 
 upon him. His heart was in his eyes as 
 he says : ' To-morrow at eleven.' Here's 
 his card with the tryst wrote upon it in his 
 own hand. The shakes is caused by feel- 
 ings." 
 
 " Thank you, Denis, dear," replied Kath- 
 arine wearily. She took the card and read it 
 with no visible emotion, and then quite calmly 
 tore it in two and threw its fragments into the 
 fire. 
 
 " At eleven, you say he will be here ? I'm 
 glad to know that." 
 
 " Strong in hopes," added the shocked Mrs. 
 140
 
 fsle of 7)reams 
 
 Denis, " as you will be well enough to see 
 him." 
 
 " I expect to be entirely well long before 
 then. In fact, there's not much wrong with 
 me now," protested Kate, and with the un- 
 grateful intention of getting rid of Denis's 
 solicitude and her panegyrics upon the beau- 
 tiful young gentleman she feigned an interest 
 in the day's menu. It was an unfailing 
 method of banishing Denis, and one to which 
 Katharine and the Drummonds unblushingly 
 resorted. Mrs. Denis was convinced that 
 without the inspiration of her constant pres- 
 ence and watchfulness "that young gurrl," 
 as she described each succeeding servant of 
 whatever age and duty, would lay ignorant 
 hands upon the commissariat and " poison us 
 all with noxious viands." 
 
 So Denis trotted off to the kitchen and 
 Katharine summoned Carrie to hear of how 
 the enemy had stormed the citadel, carried the 
 outworks, and made an unprotesting prisoner 
 of the garrison of one. 
 
 And Denis did not see her " lamb " again 
 until the succeeding Wednesday morning, 
 141
 
 Ssle of %)reams 
 
 when she was hurried into a cab and driven 
 to the White Star dock. There Katharine, 
 with many remorseful speeches and embraces, 
 informed her old nurse that she was going 
 away, but tempered the surprise by assurances 
 of a swift return. 
 
 " And you will take care of everything for 
 me, won't you Denis, dear? " she charged her. 
 " And be good to the Drummonds, and don't 
 let the babies forget me. Let everything go 
 on as it has. I'll send you a cheque at the 
 first of every month. If you want to write 
 to me use the old address of the Paris bank. 
 But almost before you have time to miss me, 
 I shall be back again. And, oh, I'm going to 
 miss you all so ! For I love you, Denis, dear. 
 I love you." 
 
 The emotional Denis was swamped in tears, 
 astonishment, sorrow, and reproachfulness, 
 and did not reach the surface of articulate 
 speech until she was back in the deserted 
 house and the Celtic was far beyond the 
 Statue of Liberty. Only Mrs. Drummond re- 
 mained to listen to her bewailings and to her 
 perplexity as to what she could say to "the 
 142
 
 Sale of ^Dreams 
 
 beautiful gentleman " who had called thrice 
 within three days. 
 
 " If you mean Mr. Ford," said Carrie dark- 
 ly, " I will see him, if you like, and explain 
 things to him. I'd really rather like it, I 
 think." 
 
 " Oh, will you, ma'am ! " cried Denis. " He 
 was here on Sunday, an' the sufferin' dear 
 wouldn't see him. I give her his card with a 
 few words written on it in a shakin' hand. 
 There in that very chair she set an' wep, and 
 she tears up the card an' throws it in the fire." 
 
 Later in the afternoon as Carrie was sitting 
 in the big, disordered studio, Mrs. Denis an- 
 nounced Ford's arrival. 
 
 " He's below, ma'am, dear," she whispered, 
 though two doors, a flight of stairs, and sev- 
 eral corridors lay between her and detection. 
 " Mr. Ford, strong in his young hopes, is 
 below." 
 
 " Bring him up," laughed Carrie mischie- 
 vously. " I'll see him." 
 
 " Do, ma'am, and ease his mind. Yesterday 
 he was terrible put out " 
 
 " Then it would be only kind to let him in 
 143
 
 Z>he Ssle of Ereams 
 
 to-day," Mrs. Drummond suggested. " Ask 
 him to come to Miss Merrill's studio." 
 
 " Where is Miss Merrill ? " Ford demanded 
 after the curtest of greetings had been ex- 
 changed. 
 
 " I really can't tell you," said Carrie, very 
 small and indignant in her Savonarola chair. 
 " Ever since her very enlightening visit to 
 your Island, we have been packing. She left 
 to-day." 
 
 " Where did she go ? " asked Ford, consult- 
 ing his watch. 
 
 "I don't know," Carrie admitted weakly, 
 but added vindictively, " and if I did I should 
 hardly tell you. Your interference has done 
 quite enough of harm. You've broken her 
 pride and her spirit ; you've broken everything 
 but her ambition." 
 
 " We will discuss that later. At present I 
 want to ask you some questions which your 
 energy leads me to think you can answer. 
 Will you tell me whether Miss Merrill's pecul- 
 iar manner toward myself is caused by genius 
 or by pique ? " 
 
 " And I refuse to answer so rude and heart - 
 144
 
 Ss/ff of 'Dreams 
 
 less a question. By what right do you ask it ? 
 Haven't you done her enough injury? " 
 
 " There seems to be a sort of consolidated 
 misunderstanding on this point," said Ford 
 calmly, " and with your permission or even 
 without any cordial expression of it I shall 
 explain the matter to you. I am fond of pic- 
 tures. I am not an artist, but I have traveled 
 widely, have haunted every picture gallery of 
 interest in Europe, and know something of 
 Oriental art as well. I trust I don't bore you." 
 
 " Oh, no," Mrs. Drummond murmured po- 
 litely, and in truth he did not, for she was 
 absorbed in the details, not of his biography, 
 but of his costume. How, she wondered, did 
 he manage to be so utterly correct without 
 being aggravating. 
 
 " It is now some years since I found and 
 bought a picture called ' The Isle of Dreams,' 
 by Katharine Merrill. You know it, of 
 course?" 
 
 " I never chanced to see it, but she often 
 
 spoke of it and wondered where it was. She 
 
 used to talk of the way in which her things 
 
 dropped out of sight. She could sometimes 
 
 145
 
 of B 
 
 trace them through two or three changes in 
 ownership, but after that she always lost them. 
 Of course, we know the reason now, and she 
 might have guessed it earlier if she had not 
 been so busy and proud and happy. She owes 
 you a great deal both ways." 
 
 "Well, I fell in love with 'The Isle of 
 Dreams ' and set out to collect more of the 
 artist's work. There is such an air of author- 
 ity and maturity in everything I found that I 
 took it for granted that she was a woman of 
 middle age, and thought the few canvases my 
 dealer succeeded in securing for me to be but 
 a very insignificant part of her entire work. 
 On Saturday night I learned the truth under 
 circumstances which I can never sufficiently 
 deplore. I was a brute." 
 
 "Oh, no, how could you know?" urged 
 Carrie, making strange use of her coveted few 
 uninterrupted moments with Robert Ford. 
 
 " I failed then to make her understand my 
 position, and I have since failed three times to 
 find her when I called. I intend to see her. 
 Can I persuade you now to tell me where 
 she is?" 
 
 146
 
 Sslo of %)roams 
 
 "Off Fire Island," answered Mrs. Drum- 
 mond forlornly. "Gone away and no one 
 knows where she is. I am to send letters to 
 her bankers in Paris, and none of her other 
 friends know even so much. She's going to 
 some far-away village to sketch and paint and 
 work until she gets a medal or so, a picture in 
 the Salon, and some of the fame you've im- 
 prisoned in that gallery of yours." 
 
 Robert took a meditative stroll through the 
 room, and Carrie, watching him with careful 
 and appraising eyes, found herself suddenly 
 sorry for him, though there was no bid for 
 sympathy in his expression or in his carriage. 
 Neither did his next remark sound helpless. 
 
 " There is no immediate need for communi- 
 cating with her either by letter or in person, 
 though both could, of course, be managed. 
 When we have made some progress in the 
 arrangement of her affairs we will report to 
 her. May I ask you to reproduce as nearly 
 as possible her mental condition when she 
 left? You and she, of course, discussed the 
 part I had taken in her affairs. In what way 
 have I injured her ? " 
 
 147
 
 Ssle of 'Dreams 
 
 " Well, in several ways. But most of all 
 I should say you have destroyed her self-con- 
 fidence. She considered herself we all con- 
 sidered her an artist of established reputa- 
 tion, well known and appreciated ; almost, in 
 a limited field, famous. You understand how 
 the delusion arose and how it grew." 
 
 " Perfectly," he answered gravely. " And 
 my further injury? " 
 
 " Was to her self-respect. We are all proud 
 to make the big impersonal Public our banker. 
 We take its money proudly and we spend it gay- 
 ly. No income inherited from dead relatives or 
 shared by living ones ever seems so absolutely 
 and irresponsibly our own as the Public's pay- 
 ment for the Public's pleasure. Actors and 
 painters and singers and writers will all tell 
 you this. Well, Katharine has learned that 
 she lived and dressed, and played and learned, 
 not by the generosity of this open-handed, un- 
 exacting Public, but by the generosity of Rob- 
 ert Ford. She has thought out the situation 
 in all sorts of bearings, and she has decided 
 first to make her name known in the picture 
 world via the Paris Salon and the English 
 148
 
 Z/Aff Ssie of 'Dreams 
 
 and American exhibitions, and then to repay 
 you what she can." 
 
 " In what length of time does she intend to 
 accomplish this ? " 
 
 " It will take a long, long time. Just her 
 foreign work will take at least a year." 
 
 " And during this year what is my role 
 to be ? Were you so good as to settle that for 
 me?" he asked with a smile. 
 
 " You will please do nothing," Carrie com- 
 manded. " There is, in fact, nothing for you 
 to do." 
 
 " And I have never," said Robert Ford, 
 "been in the habit of doing nothing by the 
 year." 
 
 149
 
 XIII 
 
 [ATHARINE MERRILL was suf- 
 fering meanwhile in the hard-won 
 solitude of her cabin as she had 
 not before found time to do. The few days 
 which intervened between her enlightenment 
 on the Island and the sailing of the Celtic 
 had afforded no leisure for dejection and tears, 
 even if such weakness had not been impossible 
 in the brave and championing society of Car- 
 rie Drummond. 
 
 But when she had bestowed her well-worn 
 traveling necessaries in their proper places, 
 when she had interviewed the deck steward 
 and chartered a chair, when she had studied 
 the passenger list and rejoiced to find no fa- 
 miliar name upon it, when she had wandered 
 through the floral display in the saloon and 
 had restored three lost and howling young- 
 150
 
 Sale of 
 
 sters to their lost and helpless nurses then 
 she realized that even the physical preoccupa- 
 tions of sea sickness may be preferable to the 
 psychical preoccupations of self-pity and self- 
 reviling, and abandoned herself to misery of 
 a lonely, introspective sort. There was noth- 
 ing but thinking to do, and no one to protect 
 her from the conclusion to which that thinking 
 led. 
 
 She was a failure. All her years of effort 
 and of work, all her years of unchanging 
 devotion and proud sacrifice culminated in 
 this. She had decorated an obscure room on 
 an uncharted island belonging to an unknown 
 man. 
 
 Hour after hour she lay in her stateroom 
 and marveled at her past stupidity. Why had 
 she never followed the adventures of her pic- 
 tures after their first purchase ? Many of her 
 friends kept careful record of their work, en- 
 tered its vicissitudes and changes of owner- 
 ship in little books devoted to that use, knew 
 the cities, houses, galleries, and museums 
 which held their pictures. But she, blind fool, 
 had never done this. She had preferred her
 
 i0 fsle of 7)reams 
 
 " Big Impersonal Public " to a cold list of in- 
 dividuals or institutions. " A fool," she 
 fretted, as she buried her hot cheek in the 
 cooler side of her pillow and waved away the 
 ministrations of the stewardess, "a motley, 
 conceited fool!" 
 
 The stewardess persisted. The day was 
 fine. The young lady had not left her room 
 for nearly two days. " An' the hair, miss, 
 hon the deck will do you good 'owever hill 
 you feel. Let me dress you, do now, and 
 steward shall 'elp you hup." 
 
 The woman was kindly, and her suggestion 
 sensible. Katharine adopted it, though she 
 declined the proffered " 'elp," and Mrs. Denis, 
 at home in the house which was always empty 
 to her when her nursling was not in it, would 
 have been torn between pride and sorrow if 
 she could have known how dreadfully that 
 nursling missed the touch of her loving old 
 hands and the refuge of her faithful ad- 
 miration. For dressing is but a thankless 
 and uninteresting work when there is no 
 one to assist at the process or care for 
 the result. 
 
 152
 
 fsle of breams 
 
 The glare and cheer of the deck were even 
 more trying when Katharine at last reached 
 that sunny pandemonium of quoits, flirtations, 
 babies, books, pedestrians, bean bags, mal-de- 
 mer, and shuffleboard. Her rugs were con- 
 signed to the deck steward under whose 
 admiring care she had often traveled but 
 who ventured now to suggest " a very dry 
 broiled chop and a glass of dry champagne, 
 miss," and who shook his head in sympathetic 
 incredulity when Katharine explained that she 
 was only tired, not ill. 
 
 " Oh, no, miss ; of course not, miss," he 
 respectfully agreed as he established her in 
 her chair. " But, if you'll allow me to suggest 
 it, you'll eat much better up here in the air 
 than if you went down to the stuffy saloon. 
 Shall I order that little snack I described to 
 you, miss, for your luncheon?" 
 
 " If you will," said Miss Merrill listlessly. 
 "Thank you, yes. I should rather not go 
 down." 
 
 So she lay among her wrappings long hour 
 after hour and, once the gayest of holiday 
 makers, watched the gayety all about her with 
 153
 
 "Uhe Sale of 'Dreams 
 
 lack-luster eyes. Occasionally one of the 
 ship's officers, recognizing her, stopped and 
 spoke. Her neighbors to right and left prof- 
 fered a remark and a magazine, but she was 
 left, save for these fleeting interruptions, to 
 a depression which grew steadily more 
 unbearable. 
 
 For here were sky and sea and sunshine, 
 empty day after empty day. Here were 
 sunsets, too, and all things nautical. Here 
 were even light-hearted men and maids in 
 yachting array, just as there had been on her 
 last day among her dreams. Not a word or 
 incident of that day escaped her, and there 
 was hardly one to which she could look back 
 without humiliation and regret. Beginning 
 with the duplicating conversations on the sea 
 wall, she had gone merrily through blunder 
 after blunder, stupidity after stupidity until 
 she had ended in tears, vituperation, and 
 flight, " just like an hysterical schoolgirl or 
 the leading lady in a melodrama," she jeered. 
 " And you let him know and pity you ! What 
 good can his pity do you, you coward; you 
 spiritless, prideless Thing ! " and Mrs. Denis 
 154
 
 fsle of breams 
 
 might have scented " a dangerous looking 
 sign " in the use of the pronoun without its 
 antecedent. 
 
 The happier portions of that day made no 
 more pleasant memory. All the gay badinage 
 which had enlivened the hours spent in the 
 Katrinka took on a horrible significance in the 
 light of the evening's discovery. The part of 
 all her wholly inexcusable conduct which 
 seemed most inexcusable and inexplicable was 
 that gayly enough and thoughtlessly but ac- 
 curately withal she had furnished Ford with 
 the essentials of her biography. Her early 
 life, her loneliness, Denis, her work, her ambi- 
 tion, her pride, and her success. He knew 
 about them all and what each had meant to 
 her. Even little incidents and habits of her 
 daily life she had described to him, and the 
 joy with which she lived it ! Her very clothes 
 had not escaped, and she had let him know 
 that she had dressed and played and lived upon 
 his largesse. She had told him about the bed 
 in the Babies' Hospital ! a thing which no one 
 not even Carrie Drummond had known. 
 There must have been some witchery in the 
 11 155
 
 "Uhe fsle of *Dr earns 
 
 day or in the air. She had never talked to 
 anyone as she had to that slow-smiling, quick- 
 seeing Robert Ford. And what must he have 
 thought of her outbreak about Fame ! Of 
 course it was bathos, pure bathos, and he had 
 encouraged even abetted her in it. How he 
 must have laughed about it afterwards ! 
 
 But even in her sore resentment she knew 
 this to be unjust. She remembered his con- 
 cern when she had told him as she would 
 have given worlds not to have told him 
 that all her pictures were also his. Of course 
 he might have regarded them simply from a 
 commercial standpoint and have been dis- 
 mayed to find them practically worthless. 
 But he had shown no trace of such considera- 
 tion in the short few moments in the hall on 
 that nightmare night, nor had his persistent at- 
 tempts to find her at her own home, as senti- 
 mentally reported by Denis, indicated that he 
 regarded her as in any way responsible for 
 the fiasco or even that he considered the cir- 
 cumstances in that lamentable light. 
 
 If only she had been warned or prepared, 
 ever so indefinitely, she might have held her- 
 156
 
 of ftreams 
 
 self in better control: might have carried the 
 situation so differently ; might have suffered 
 chagrin, disappointment, injury, and humilia- 
 tion silently and proudly; might have spared 
 herself the paralyzing consciousness that he 
 was sorry for her. In all the lesser trials of 
 her life she had asked and accepted pity from 
 no one, and now she knew herself to be the 
 object of pity to the man to whom she owed 
 her comfort, her home, her very income. 
 
 And his enlightenment in no way helped in 
 her design. It would have been better to have 
 left him in the placid enjoyment of the erro- 
 neous value he set upon his property until she 
 had done all that could be done to make his 
 valuation the true one. It would have been 
 the work of years, even under the most favor- 
 able stars, but it would still have been pos- 
 sible. Only she had known the exact number 
 of her canvases ; only she could have betrayed 
 their worthlessness, and only she had done it. 
 She could imagine the avidity with which the 
 studio tea tables and club lunch rooms would 
 fall upon the tidings that Katharine Merrill, 
 the aloof, the haughty, the domestically in- 
 157
 
 fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 clined, was that worst of pretenders in the 
 court of Art, a one man's fad. From the 
 studios the news would spread to the papers, 
 from them to the dealers, from them to " the 
 Great Impersonal Public," which she had for 
 so long held in grateful regard, but which 
 would then be hearing her name for the first 
 time. 
 
 She could do nothing to avert the catas- 
 trophe. She was completely in Robert Ford's 
 power, and Carrie Drummond was not there 
 to suggest that she had so been any time dur- 
 ing the past four or five years, and had pros- 
 pered and been happy in it, and to recom- 
 mend that he be trusted to guard what was his 
 only the more carefully for knowing that it 
 was all his. 
 
 The steward, much concerned, brought and 
 administered his panacea twice a day through- 
 out the remaining space of the voyage. The 
 stewardess carried out a treatment of her own 
 devising at breakfast time. The officers were 
 cordial, introductions inevitable, and Kath- 
 arine young and neither ill favored nor ill 
 mannered. But not all these antidotes to 
 158
 
 "Uhe fste of ^Dreams 
 
 melancholy could keep her from returning, 
 time after time, to the darkest shadow in the 
 Valley of Humiliation her doubt of her 
 own talent. Had she the power, she asked 
 herself, to force recognition from the world? 
 Could she rely upon the verdict of the preju- 
 diced Drummonds, the uncritical Ford, or the 
 casual writer of art reviews and notices ? Fel- 
 low students, fellow exhibitors, teachers, and 
 fellow artists had been kind. But these were 
 poor substitutes for the growing mass of pub- 
 lic appreciation upon which she had so mis- 
 takenly rested. And to all other torments of 
 spirit these reflections added fear. 
 
 Shaken in self-esteem and lonely beyond 
 tears she at last reached the little fishing town 
 which was to be the scene of a struggle which 
 only high hope, indomitable courage, and se- 
 cure self-confidence could carry to success. 
 And Fate and Ford had beggared her. 
 
 She was greeted vociferously by her old 
 friend and landlady, and courteously by the 
 blushing fisherman son of the house whom 
 she remembered as a tow-headed urchin much 
 given to the shy commencements of conversa- 
 159
 
 Jsle of Breams 
 
 tion but always overcome at his own temerity 
 after the two first remarks. She climbed to 
 the little room which had been hers and was 
 amazed to find it quite unchanged by all the 
 changing years. Even the view from the lit- 
 tle window was the same, and she caught her 
 breath sharply as she turned to it. And 
 straightway all her hope and courage and 
 strength came surging back to her. For out 
 beyond the squat shipping and blunt docks of 
 the harbor, out under the perfect sky, violet 
 cliffed, soft wooded, and beautiful beyond all 
 remembering, the original Island of Dreams 
 lay on its placid waters waiting to welcome 
 her. 
 
 160
 
 XIV 
 
 OESPITE Ford's energetic protesta- 
 tion against a year's idleness he 
 seemed, as the months went by, to 
 be blessed with unlimited leisure. He found 
 time to lay siege to the sympathy and friend- 
 ship of the elder Drummond, and the Misses 
 Drummond adored him from the first. Doris 
 Gwendolin Patricia accepted him with enthu- 
 siasm, and Denis regarded him as a being sent 
 straight from heaven or the nearest public 
 library. 
 
 It was she who instituted and maintained 
 the rule that he should be ushered straight to 
 Miss Merrill's studio, and that the Drum- 
 monds should be notified of his presence only 
 when he so desired. And he spent many an 
 afternoon hour alone or with only Doris Gwen- 
 dolin Patricia to bear him company in the big, 
 161
 
 Ssle of ^Dreams 
 
 dim room in which he had never seen Kath- 
 arine Merrill, but in which, nevertheless, he 
 could always see her clearly. 
 
 Mrs. Denis watched over him with a devo- 
 tion only less than that with which she yearned 
 for her nursling, and she always reported 
 these solitary vigils to Mrs. Drummond. 
 
 " The beautiful gentleman was here to-day, 
 ma'am," she would impart in bronchial whis- 
 perings. " His offerings to the empty shrine 
 was roses, sweet flowers of love; and last 
 month it was daffydills. His heart gets 
 warmer, ma'am, with the weather. So it ever 
 was with Denis, as the seasons rolled." And 
 Carrie, sitting often in the empty shrine, 
 would wonder and dream and sigh. But at 
 the last she always smiled. 
 
 On the days when foreign mails might be 
 expected Robert Ford might be expected also. 
 Then would he and the ladies of the Drum- 
 mond family with sometimes the much- 
 starched addition of Doris Gwendolin Patricia 
 have tea in the studio ; and he would then, 
 sitting gravely in the Savonarola chair and 
 protecting his scarf pin from the onslaughts of 
 162
 
 "Uhe Ssfo of 'Dreams 
 
 the younger of the Misses Drummond, whose 
 devotion to him was only equaled by his pas- 
 sion for them, listen to the excerpts from Miss 
 Merrill's correspondence with which Mrs. 
 Drummond, with shockingly little compunc- 
 tion, entertained him. 
 
 " And listen to this," she superfluously en- 
 treated on a day when every faculty of his 
 was concentrated upon the letter in her hand, 
 " just listen to this " : 
 
 " ' It occurs to me that, since Tom knows 
 him, you may meet Robert Ford. Don't let 
 my experience prejudice you against him, and 
 don't quite take him at Denis's valuation. I 
 remember that, before I saw his pictures, I 
 thought him more than usually bearable; but 
 she has deified him. Be careful not to men- 
 tion me to him nor to tell him anything about 
 my plans.' " 
 
 "How does that affect you?" asked Mrs. 
 Drummond. 
 
 " I feel like a Nihilist," he answered with 
 
 a slight catch in his voice, due perhaps to 
 
 emotion, perhaps to the sudden planting in 
 
 the midst of his faultless waistcoat of the fat 
 
 163
 
 ZfAff Sslo of breams 
 
 pink slippers of the younger Miss Drum- 
 mond. 
 
 ' ' There is something/ " she read on, 
 " ' wrong about the men one meets away from 
 home. They are never quite and entirely as 
 one feels they ought to be. Is it that men, 
 when they are charming, don't travel? Or is 
 it that men, when they are traveling, aren't 
 charming? ' ' 
 
 " Now, O confessed globe trotter," Carrie 
 asked, " how does that make you feel ? " 
 
 " Much worse, thank you," he blandly lied. 
 He was quite content to be mentioned or re- 
 membered at all in a life as busy as that out 
 of which Katharine sent these letters. 
 
 She was working desperately, she wrote, 
 but she felt that she was accomplishing much. 
 A picture for the Paris Salon was well under 
 way, and another for the London Academy 
 was beginning to take form. There were 
 always messages to Denis and to Mr. Drum- 
 mond, and always prayers and entreaties that 
 the babies should not be allowed to forget 
 their absent but devoted Aunt Katharine. 
 
 As time passed and her confidence grew, 
 164
 
 fslo of breams 
 
 she trusted herself to send a message to Ford. 
 "Get Tom to tell him," it ran, "not to sell 
 those pictures unless he has already done so. 
 If these plans of mine should carry they may, 
 after all, be worth something. Tom needn't 
 go into details of course, but simply advise 
 him to wait before disposing of them." 
 
 But Ford did not profit by this sage advice. 
 Rather it seemed to worry him when Carrie 
 imparted it. They were all on the Island. It 
 was late August, and Captain Jameson, closely 
 followed by Doris Gwendolin Patricia, had 
 arrived with the letters just as Bertha and 
 tea appeared. The Misses Drummond flut- 
 tered white among the roses and butterflies, 
 and Mrs. Ford was discoursing softly at the 
 piano in the cool dimness of the music room. 
 
 " Does she say anything of the date of her 
 return ? " asked Ford. " I trust she has not 
 changed her plan of staying at least a year." 
 
 " You don't want her to come home ! " ex- 
 claimed Carrie with an indignation which 
 nearly precipitated her from her deck chair to 
 the stones of the terrace. "You don't want 
 to see her ! I'm surprised at you ! " 
 165
 
 fsle of ^Dreams 
 
 " Not for a year at least. I'm not carry- 
 ing out your instructions about doing noth- 
 ing, you see, and I'm very busy about this 
 name and fame of hers." 
 
 " Tom," cried his dutiful wife. " Do you 
 hear? Wake up, dear, and conspire." 
 
 " I'm not asleep," Drummond retorted, and 
 showed his still lighted cigar in corrobora- 
 tion. " I am preparing an obituary for you 
 to present to Denis when you have allowed 
 Doris Gwendolin Patricia to be drowned. 
 She is never out of the boats." 
 
 " Nor away from Captain Jameson," Carrie 
 supplemented, " and Mrs. Denis would be the 
 last to object. She is very romantic on the 
 subject of the captain, and looks forward to 
 his visits as events. ' Seafaring gentlemen,' 
 she told me the other day, ' improves the man- 
 ners and broadens the minds of us all.' He 
 surely improves the manners of D. G. P. She 
 is as good as gold with him, and her conversa- 
 tion is growing quite nautical." 
 
 " He's as changed as she," said Jack. 
 " He's downright garrulous and babbling 
 when that child's with him. And she tells me 
 166
 
 Ssfff 
 
 that he sings think of that old chap singing 
 when he calls on Mrs. Denis." 
 
 " I heard him," babbled Carrie. " Or rather 
 I felt him. It was like a gentle earthquake. 
 And then Denis allowed herself to be per- 
 suaded to step a few steps of a jig. The three 
 infants were unmanageable for days after- 
 wards." 
 
 "And a change has come over Denis's 
 repertoire of songs for housewifely lubrica- 
 tion," Drummond observed. "When I came 
 home from the office the other day she was 
 shelling peas in the garden to the tune of 
 ' Nancy Lee,' and she tried to put the infants 
 to sleep on ' My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean.' 
 Isn't that what she would herself describe as 
 a ' dangerous looking sign ' if she detected it 
 in our fair Chatelaine ? " 
 
 " Whom Mr. Ford would consign to alien 
 lands forever," remarked Carrie. " I wonder 
 what Denis and the captain would think if they 
 heard him hoping she would never come back." 
 
 " I said," Ford repeated, " and I maintain, 
 that I hope Miss Merrill will stay away for 
 at least a year. During that time I intend to 
 167
 
 "She fslo of ftreams 
 
 set all things straight between us, so that I can 
 meet her frankly on equal ground, and I want 
 both of you to help me. But most of all I 
 want you to write her no reports of what we 
 are doing or any notices which may appear 
 in the newspapers." 
 
 " Newspaper notices ! " marveled Carrie. 
 " Why and when ? " 
 
 " It's part of the game, a part of the fame," 
 he answered. " She can't be much in the pub- 
 lic eye without being in the public print." 
 
 "Do you think she'll like it?" she queried. 
 
 " Do you think she'll know it ? " he parried. 
 
 " You are right ; how should she ? " Carrie 
 sighed. " She lets no one write to her save 
 me, and my poor brain reels under the strain 
 of sending her a weekly budget of news and 
 leaving out all the interesting happenings. I 
 can never tell her when we have been here nor 
 about the sailing we have nor any of the fun. 
 Luckily there are always the children to write 
 about. She is as insane as ever about them, 
 begging me not to let them forget her and all 
 that kind of thing. As though I could change 
 the course of nature and make the days stand 
 168
 
 fsle of Qreams 
 
 still. But I do my best. Come here, chil- 
 dren," she called, as the young ladies plunged 
 into view through a hedge of sweet peas. 
 " Come here and listen to your overworked 
 parent. Do you remember Aunt Katharine ? " 
 
 " Yes, mother," answered the elder Miss 
 Drummond; the younger Miss Drummond 
 sucked her thumb. 
 
 " Then don't forget her," their mother 
 charged them. " But, if you feel it coming 
 on, apply to Mr. Ford. He remembers her." 
 
 " My Aunt Katharine gives me candy," the 
 younger Miss Drummond was understood to 
 remark as she swarmed up Mr. Ford's white- 
 ducked person to clasp him round the neck. 
 " No one gives me candy now," she stated 
 plaintively. " Wisht she'd come in now with 
 candy." 
 
 "Go and tell my mother that we and tea 
 are waiting for her," Robert advised. " Per- 
 haps she'll give you some cake if you promise 
 to be very good." 
 
 " I am good," the younger Miss Drummond 
 assured him. " But cake and candy makes me 
 better." 
 
 169
 
 XV 
 
 OO you know," Carrie Drummond idly 
 observed in the ensuing pause, 
 " that boat out there seems to be 
 in trouble." 
 
 Ford turned lazily in the direction of her 
 pointing finger. Jack and Drummond were 
 already watching the erratic course of a small 
 sloop which seemed bent upon committing sui- 
 cide among Captain Jameson's flotilla. 
 
 "Girl at the wheel," was Jack's diagnosis, 
 and Carrie handed him the field glasses. He 
 broke into an amazed chuckle and, lying 
 carefully down again, began to wriggle, pros- 
 trate, toward the house. Instantly and gladly 
 the elder Miss Drummond prepared to follow 
 suit, but was parentally restrained. 
 
 " Crawl while yet there's time," Jack warned 
 his brother, " or, if you'd rather, stay and be 
 170
 
 fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 taken alive. I'm off to my mother's apron 
 strings." 
 
 Robert possessed himself of the glasses, 
 through which the puzzled Carrie could only 
 distinguish an innocent seeming tender into 
 which a white-ducked man and two blue-jer- 
 seyed sailors were assisting a yachting cos- 
 tume, a parasol, and a pair of high-heeled feet. 
 
 " By Jove, Jack, she's caught you," said 
 Robert sympathetically preparing to retreat 
 toward the house. " Just tell her how deeply 
 I am sure to regret having missed her." 
 
 " I'd love to, but I've such a cold," wheezed 
 Jack from the shelter of the rosebushes. " Let 
 Mrs. Drummond tell her." 
 
 " Tell whom ? " demanded that mystified 
 matron. " What has happened to both of 
 you ? " 
 
 " We're frightened ; we want our mother," 
 the hidden Ford explained, and Miss Drum- 
 mond, scenting a new game, crowed raptu- 
 rously and threw herself upon him. 
 
 The strangers meanwhile sped over the 
 short interspace of blue water and approached 
 the landing stage, where "the Boy," Captain 
 12 171
 
 "Uhe Sale of 
 
 Jameson, and his constant shadow, Doris 
 Gwendolin Patricia, " stood by " with a beau- 
 tiful precision. The lady in the nautical cos- 
 tume waved a hand, raised a veil, tilted a 
 parasol, and Doris Gwendolin Patricia bolted 
 toward the group upon the terrace. Her thin 
 legs twinkled over the grass, and her thinner 
 voice preceded her: 
 
 " It's that Miss Emerton," she panted, as 
 she fell upon Mrs. Drummond. " What's she 
 coming for? We didn't want her." 
 
 " True, sage infant," Carrie answered, as 
 she glanced from Ford to Ford and did some 
 rapid memory work, " but perhaps she wants 
 some of us." 
 
 " I want my mother," Jack insisted. " I 
 only want my mother." 
 
 " And what can she do for you ? " asked 
 Mrs. Ford, appearing at one of the long 
 windows. 
 
 " Save me ! " he begged. " Let her have 
 Robert. I'm too young to be taken from my 
 mother." 
 
 " It's Miss Emerton," Robert explained. 
 " She has returned to claim her own." 
 172
 
 Vhe fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 " Or to exhibit him," supplemented Carrie, 
 watching the embarkation with shrewd eyes. 
 "From the bend of his back and the set of 
 his chin, I should judge that spotless youth 
 to consider himself on exhibition in a hostile, 
 jealous land." 
 
 " He is," said Jack. " I ought to warn him 
 that Robert " 
 
 " Go and bid him welcome, boys," their 
 mother enjoined them. 
 
 " And stifle your true feelings," added Car- 
 rie. " Remember that a man may smile and 
 smile and be a villain." 
 
 The brothers rose in obedient concert, and, 
 each attended and circumnavigated by a cir- 
 cling Miss Drummond, set out to do the neces- 
 sary violence to truth. 
 
 The stranger proved to be a suspicious but 
 harmless combination of large feet and hands, 
 with a small head and a jerky manner. Jack 
 remembered having encountered him at some 
 winter festivity, and welcomed him with all 
 possible cordiality, while he met Miss Emer- 
 ton with a just perceptible tinge of reproach- 
 fulness which gratified that young lady and 
 173
 
 Sale of 'Dreams 
 
 flattered the small-headed young man into the 
 pride of feeling that he was succeeding where 
 another had failed as Jack intended that he 
 should feel. 
 
 Robert was presented and commiserated 
 under the same happy misconception, and then 
 Gladys turned incredulous eyes upon the 
 plump but uncordial faces of the Misses 
 Drummond. 
 
 " Why, babies ! " was the only remark which 
 her usually copious vocabulary yielded, nor 
 was her amazement decreased when Doris 
 Gwendolin Patricia passed on her quick, flit- 
 ting way to rejoin the captain. Another sur- 
 prise was waiting for her in a cushion-filled 
 lounging chair beside the tea table Carrie 
 Drummond and she found still another in 
 the air of perfect and accustomed ease with 
 which this young matron presided over the 
 samovar and chatted with Mrs. Ford, while 
 Drummond devoted his lazy energies to the 
 disinfecting of a favorite rosebush with clouds 
 of tobacco smoke. More introductions ensued 
 through which Gladys's large-handed admirer 
 was sustained by being appointed guardian of 
 174
 
 ZtAff Ss/ff of 'Dreams 
 
 the white parasol. He stood in need of some 
 such support, for Miss Emerton was encoun- 
 tering even more difficulty in steering her con- 
 versational bark through the shoals and rapids 
 of this gathering than she had met on her 
 approach to the Island. Whenever a collision 
 seemed inevitable she threw the unsuspecting 
 Mr. G. Percival Carsons over the rail and 
 used him to avert the crash of actual impact. 
 But nothing could check Mrs. Ford's innocent 
 desire for speech and information, and it was 
 she who introduced the topic which everyone 
 else-* except always the custodian of the para- 
 sol had been avoiding. 
 
 " What do you hear from our friend Miss 
 Merrill ? " she asked when everyone was com- 
 fortably established. 
 
 " Nothing at all," responded Miss Emerton, 
 and she threw Mr. Carsons into aquatic service 
 again by asking him : 
 
 " You remember my friend, the Miss Mer- 
 rill who painted, do you not ? " 
 
 "Remember her perfectly," he agreed. 
 " Brown eyes, hadn't she ? Awfully neat girl. 
 Awfully neat." 
 
 175
 
 Ssle of 
 
 He had already so characterized the Drum-) 
 mond babies, the wide prospect of summer sea. 
 several of Miss Emerton's remarks, and the 
 proportions of tea, cream, and sugar with 
 which Carrie had regaled him. He felt that 
 he was blossoming into eloquence and doing 
 honor to his theme, and the silence which 
 greeted his last remarks urged him to yet 
 more complicated flights. 
 
 " Saw a picture of hers once in a shop. 
 Really a neat little thing you know, with some 
 water and trees and things of that kind in it. 
 Haven't seen her lately. Where is she, Miss 
 Gladys?" 
 
 " Ask Mr. Ford," Gladys acidly advised 
 him, but before he had found time to do so, 
 Carrie was answering him and earning the 
 admiration of Jack Ford and the grateful 
 friendship of Robert. What the recording 
 angels may have thought of her performance 
 seemed to trouble her not at all. 
 
 " Miss Merrill is in Europe," she told Mr. 
 Carsons, with so confidential a smile that he 
 felt quite definitely informed. " She got sev- 
 eral commissions which meant a great deal to 
 176
 
 fslo of breams 
 
 her, and she went over to execute them. 
 Haven't you heard from her?" she added 
 sweetly to Gladys. 
 
 " Never," said that young person, but she 
 said it to Robert. Questions and answers 
 seemed to run at cross-purposes, and the care- 
 fully trained Misses Drummond marveled at 
 the manners of these elders of theirs. " Never 
 once," Miss Emerton repeated, "since a day 
 or two after she ran away so queerly from me. 
 She telephoned me then that she was going 
 to sail almost immediately, but I did not bother 
 to go to see her off. I have never quite for- 
 given her for her treatment of my friends." 
 
 "Didn't you tell me something about that 
 visit?" the small-headed Mr. Carsons broke 
 loose to inquire. "I remember your being 
 dreadfully fagged one night when I met you 
 at Mrs. Courtney's. You said you'd been at 
 some poky place in the country with a girl 
 who behaved like the Wandering Jew. I'm 
 remembering it perfectly now. There was 
 music there and a chap who made a fool of 
 himself in Southern dialect. An awfully neat 
 affair altogether. And now your Wandering 
 177
 
 Tthe fsle of breams 
 
 Jew is in Europe ! That's rather turning the 
 tide isn't it? They generally wander in this 
 direction, don't they ? " 
 
 Some occult signal flashed from Carrie to 
 Drummond, and that gentleman abandoned 
 his rosebush and caught this conversational 
 gauntlet. Other psychic commands followed, 
 and he caught the conversational Mr. Carsons 
 and led him away to the safety of the billiard 
 room. After a decent interval Jack followed 
 them, and was presently heard calling loudly 
 for his brother. 
 
 " What is it ? " demanded Robert as he 
 sauntered up the steps, but Jack waited until 
 they were within whispering distance before 
 he suggested. 
 
 "Let's give true love a helping hand. 
 Come down and envy him. You sigh like a 
 furnace and I'll be actively rude Drummond 
 will help. I've tipped him off." 
 
 Drummond was already at work. He and 
 Carsons were moistly sentimental on the lone- 
 liness of bachelorhood. The windows of the 
 billiard room stood open and the brothers 
 were just outside. 
 
 178
 
 Ssla of breams 
 
 " You see these young fellows here," they 
 heard Drummond say in a throaty quaver. 
 "You see the luxury which surrounds 
 them! They are devoted to one another 
 and to their mother; they have, as you 
 see, plenty of society, and yet they are not 
 happy ! " 
 
 "Poor chaps!" commiserated the fortu- 
 nate G. Percival. "I suppose they do get 
 lonely. But they certainly are neatly fixed 
 here. Awfully neatly fixed." 
 
 " Now I," pursued Drummond, " I have no 
 such pomps in my humble rooms " 
 
 " He lives like a Sybarite ! " chuckled Rob- 
 ert, while Jack leaned helplessly against the 
 wall. " Did you ever know he had it in him ? " 
 he demanded. " Isn't he the star of pure ef- 
 fulgent ray ! " 
 
 " But happiness," Drummond went on, 
 " happiness has nothing to do with comfort. 
 When you're most happy you're often most 
 uncomfortable. You and I know that. These 
 Ford men might have discovered it if each 
 had not thought only of the other, but now it 
 is too late for both of them. And perhaps 
 179
 
 fsto of ftreams 
 
 they could not have made her happy. She's 
 a wonderful creature." 
 
 " She is ! She is ! " G. Percival Carsons ac- 
 quiesced warmly. He was by this time very 
 warm indeed, what with the sun and tea and 
 embarrassment. " But look here," he went on 
 when the purport of Drummond's earlier re- 
 mark filtered through his cranium. " Perhaps 
 we oughtn't to have come here to-day. I 
 wouldn't have come a step if I'd known. It 
 would be low, you know. I wouldn't have come 
 a step," he repeated earnestly, for G. Percival 
 Carsons had his code of ethics, and it forbade 
 open gloating over crushed rivals. " But Miss 
 Emerton wanted to show me the Island. She 
 thinks I ought to buy something like it, and, 
 by Jove, I think I will. It's so awfully neat, 
 you know. Still, if she had told me about 
 these poor chaps I'd never have come, you 
 know. Two of them ! Dear, dear ! " 
 
 " Oh, she didn't know ! You see each was 
 waiting for the other to speak. And she never 
 guesses the impression she is creating. She 
 is," and Drummond watched his victim stead- 
 ily, " so absolutely unaffected and natural." 
 180
 
 Vhe Ssle of ftreams 
 
 " She is indeed. How well you seem to 
 know her. And to think of their never tell- 
 ing her ! And knowing her for nearly a year ! 
 Why, I've told her forty times already, and I 
 met her only three months and twenty-five 
 days ago. Poor chaps. She doesn't even 
 guess." 
 
 "Of course not, and you mustn't let her. 
 I had no real right to tell you all this, but I 
 felt that you ought to know. If she found it 
 out she might make herself miserable by refus- 
 ing to accept the man she loves " and Drum- 
 mond possessed himself of the stranger's 
 right hand and shook it "because by doing 
 so she would make two other good men mis- 
 erable. You know what a heart she has ! " 
 
 " It would never do at all," Carsons agreed. 
 " It makes me feel like a sweep to think of it, 
 but, to tell you the truth, I'm the happiest man 
 alive. She's to give me a final answer on the 
 way home this evening. And of course her 
 coming here with me and all that sort of thing, 
 you know, makes me hope for the best, you 
 know." 
 
 " Surely, surely," Drummond encouraged 
 181
 
 Jste of breams 
 
 him. " And you mustn't mind these Fords 
 too much. ' It's an ill wind ' you know, and 
 ' all's fair in love and war.' They missed their 
 chance and a braver man wins ; that's all." 
 
 And yet if that were all why did he, imme- 
 diately upon the appearance of the brothers, 
 set out in search of one of his daughters, 
 whom he set out in turn in search of his wife? 
 And when they were together in the dim 
 privacy of the library, why did he further im- 
 part to that capable young matron the exact 
 condition of affairs between Miss Emerton 
 and her admirer. 
 
 " By the way," she asked casually, " did he 
 tell you who he is ? " 
 
 " G. Percival Carsons." 
 
 " The millionaire proprietor of ' Silver Ma- 
 ple/ " she announced. "You remember the 
 advertisements : ' Sure and quick relief for 
 pain or strain in man or beast. May be taken 
 internally or externally ; best if taken eter- 
 nally.' " 
 
 "Carsons the Eternal!" exclaimed Drum- 
 mond. " I've heard of him often enough. So 
 
 that's he ! And that girl " 
 
 182
 
 fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 " Is going to marry him if she can't get Rob- 
 ert Ford. She has been telling us about his 
 horses and his temper and his money. I never 
 did like that girl ! She came here to-day just 
 to see what her chances were with Robert. 
 How much do you think she really knows 
 about Kate and her pictures and all?" 
 
 " Not much, I should judge. She was not 
 quite clever enough to grasp the situation on 
 the night of the catastrophe, and she has heard 
 nothing since." 
 
 " Well, she's made up her mind to find out 
 what she can, but Mrs. Ford is a match for' 
 her. She has been fishing all the last half 
 hour, and has only discovered that Miss Mer- 
 rill was here one day in the early summer 
 shortly before she sailed on the Celtic" 
 
 "That must have surprised her," laughed 
 Drummond. " She's not succeeding bril- 
 liantly in her quest, is she ? " 
 
 " But she's making up her mind on the 
 matrimonial project," said Carrie. "Isn't it 
 awful, Tom, to be able to 'make up one's 
 mind ' about being married. When it came 
 to that point with me I hadn't any mind at all." 
 183
 
 fsle of toroams 
 
 " Thank you, dear," said her husband. 
 " That's very flattering." 
 
 " Oh, you know what I mean ! " she ex- 
 claimed, enfolding as much of him as her 
 arms could encompass in a quick and remorse- 
 ful embrace. " You know I didn't think 
 things out as she is doing. She has come here 
 deliberately to see if she has any chance to 
 secure Robert and the Island before she makes 
 a more brilliant but less pleasant arrangement 
 with Carsons." 
 
 " Exactly," he acquiesced. " And you are 
 to show her that she hasn't." 
 
 "But how?" 
 
 " Far be it from me to dictate," said he. 
 ' ' Vcrbmn sap, 1 my dear. I must go back 
 to the victor and the vanquished. But remem- 
 ber, she is to give him her answer this very 
 evening." 
 
 " She will," promised Carrie. " She'll do it 
 before they leave this island." 
 
 And she did. Drummond had always found 
 his wife's machinations diverting, but that 
 afternoon she threw herself into a combina- 
 tion of plots and counterplots which made the 
 184
 
 fste of breams 
 
 one enlightened member of her audience won- 
 der what his life would be if she should turn 
 her arts and her audacity to mischievous pur- 
 pose. From time to time she acted Chorus to 
 her own drama and vouchsafed him a word of 
 explanation, but for the most part he was 
 content to watch her manipulations of the 
 dramatis persona with a calm assurance that 
 in the last act Gladys's much-coiffed head 
 would be resting on the shoulder of Carsons, 
 the Eternal. 
 
 Groups and pairs coalesced and parted, 
 strolled or sat, re-formed and broke again, 
 under Carrie's unsuspected generalship, and 
 only once did Drummond find cause for mis- 
 giving. He was seeking solitude, or his 
 daughters, in the orchard, and discerned Miss 
 Emerton's long gracefulness disposed to ad- 
 mirable advantage against the trunk of an 
 apple tree. And she was in animated and evi- 
 dently sentimental conversation with Robert 
 Ford ! Drummond hurried off to report this 
 discovery to Carrie, but she reassured him. 
 
 " Of course, I know, I sent him to do it." 
 
 " To flirt in the orchard ? " 
 185
 
 Sste of ftreams 
 
 " To congratulate her upon her engage- 
 ment. I screwed it out of her and then every- 
 thing was simple. Jack finished first. He's 
 doing erratic things with ice and limes and 
 things in the butler's pantry, and G. Percival 
 is being cheered and petted by Mrs. Ford in 
 the library. Oh, I'm so hot ! " 
 
 " Poor little woman," he sympathized, 
 "you've been at it pretty steadily for two 
 hours. But it's good practice. You'll be glad 
 you've had it when you come to settle your 
 daughters and their suitors." 
 
 "Don't talk like that, Tom," she begged. 
 " You talk as if I were a matchmaker. And 
 you know " 
 
 " I do, indeed," he interrupted. " What are 
 you doing to Captain Jameson and to Denis? 
 What are you doing to Robert Ford and pre- 
 paring to do to the Chatelaine when you lay 
 hands on her? Marry them! every one of 
 them, you dear old Mormon." 
 
 " But this was your idea," she urged. " And 
 now, your punishment has found you. Here 
 comes the bride elect and it's your turn to be 
 congratulatory." 
 
 186
 
 XVI 
 
 of hers 
 dealers. 
 
 Katharine Merrill's 
 name emerged from obscurity. At 
 judicious intervals a canvas or two 
 appeared in the showrooms of the 
 They were always marked " Sold," 
 but they provoked comment and occasional 
 offers of repurchase. Loan exhibitions had a 
 new name on their catalogue; a new beauty 
 on their walls. Sunday supplements published 
 reproductions before which Carrie cringed 
 of the work of the new American artist. 
 A magazine of authority devoted several pages 
 to an article of critical appreciation. Slowly 
 and very carefully she grew in the esteem 
 and the knowledge of the big impersonal Pub- 
 lic until Mrs. Denis neglected the circulating 
 library and devoted her leisure and surplus 
 capital to periodic literature. 
 13 187
 
 Vhe Ssle of 'Dreams 
 
 The Drummonds were Ford's constant ad- 
 visers in what he described as the Publicity 
 Department of his project. His experience 
 of candid and commercial advertising was of 
 little assistance to him here. But Drummond 
 knew which publications were authoritative 
 on matters of art. Carrie knew a girl who 
 could " do some good stuff and place it, too." 
 Drummond knew which exhibitions were 
 worth while, and a reporter who could give a 
 chosen picture due prominence in the next 
 day's "Art Notes." 
 
 Ford was surprised that a campaign of res- 
 titution could be such an absorbing thing, and 
 he derived endless information and amuse- 
 ment from its details. But its greatest con- 
 tribution to his pleasure was the friendship 
 of the Drummonds, which led to a merging 
 and coalescing of the two households until the 
 Misses Drummond were as much at home 
 upon the Island as they were in the little park 
 opposite their city home, and Ford was as 
 familiar to Mrs. Denis's admiring regard as 
 he was to the doorman of his favorite club. 
 Even Pierre and the Captain were involved in 
 188
 
 Ssie of %)reams 
 
 this era of good feeling, and the Gallic gloom 
 of the former melted away under the spell of 
 the younger Miss Drummond, who adored 
 him. She would so blithely risk her life in 
 hanging over the side of the car by one arm 
 or leg. She would insert her fat little fingers 
 into forbidden intricacies, and withdraw them 
 in such disillusionment when they were hurt. 
 She would find and take unto herself such 
 unsuspected smudges of black grease or other 
 lurking uncleanliness. She would call down 
 upon her unrepentant head so many parental 
 reprimands. It was impossible to approve of 
 her traveling manners, and much more im- 
 possible to leave her at home when an excur- 
 sion was in prospect. So her mother had 
 adopted the expedient of putting her in 
 Pierre's charge, and to him in times of stress 
 of misbehavior she would turn with a faith in 
 his prowess and a confidence in his kindness 
 which were irresistible to the chivalry of 
 France. 
 
 This intercourse between the families added 
 largely to Ford's knowledge of the absent 
 Chatelaine. He wandered through her rooms, 
 189
 
 fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 heard her mentioned hourly and intimately, 
 handled the books she had loved, drank from 
 the cups and ate from the plates she had 
 chosen. He was urged to " try another piece 
 of this cake, it is Katharine's favorite of all 
 Mrs. Denis's repertoire," and warned that " a 
 great big spiky-haired goblin lives in that 
 closet where Aunt Katharine keeps her paints 
 and brushes. He'd bite anyone but her, an' 
 make your skin all painty where his teef 
 went in." 
 
 And daily he added to the sum total of his 
 impressions the quiet dignity and well-ordered 
 discipline of her home. The air of refinement 
 and repose which permeated it, never lost its 
 charm for him, and he felt a very real but sub- 
 conscious pride in them. It would not have 
 been safe to suggest to him that he was at 
 all influenced by the fact that, while the taste 
 and labor were hers, he had furnished the 
 sinews of war. He and she had all uncon- 
 sciously cooperated in the result. And, as 
 his own possessions had always seemed a 
 shade more desirable than those of other 
 people, he came to consider this by-product 
 190
 
 fste of ^Dreams 
 
 of his picture gallery as far and away the 
 most pleasant place in all the not inhospitable 
 city. 
 
 He never ceased from marveling that so 
 much had been done with so little. He had 
 spent less upon his pictures than upon, for in- 
 stance, his yacht, and she had turned that 
 little to such marvelous advantage. Drum- 
 mond had long been Katharine's man of busi- 
 ness, and he had held it no treason to put 
 Robert Ford in possession of the facts relat- 
 ing to the financial standing of the absent 
 Chatelaine. Carrie had indeed insisted upon 
 this explanation, knowing that her friend, 
 in the dismay of finding the length and 
 breadth of her indebtedness to Ford, had 
 quite ignored her earlier indebtedness to her 
 grandfather, to whom she owed the house, 
 its essential furnishings, and a balance at the 
 bank which made penury and luxury alike im- 
 possible. 
 
 What restraint she showed, what discern- 
 ment, and what maturity of taste ! Was it 
 possible that his memory played him false? 
 Was this, indeed, the normal setting of the 
 191
 
 Ssle of ^Dreams 
 
 blue-clad, bright-haired figure which had 
 flitted about the Katrinka and had chattered 
 to Captain Jameson and himself? 
 
 And then he asked himself again the ques- 
 tion which had baffled him: Was she after all 
 more child or woman? He told himself im- 
 patiently that the answer to it had nothing to 
 do with the fact that he owed her a reputation 
 and a fame. 
 
 Many and serious were the consultations 
 held by him and the Drummonds upon the 
 details of that climax of all their efforts 
 the exhibition and sale. After long delibera- 
 tion they fixed upon the middle of March 
 as the most auspicious season. The sale was 
 extravagantly advertised and extravagantly 
 managed, and it proved an extravagant 
 success. The works of Katharine Merrill 
 were scattered as far as even she could 
 desire, and only the " Isle of Dreams " re- 
 mained, hung now with much quiet pomp 
 of frame and circumstance upon her studio 
 wall. 
 
 Her letters at about that time were full of 
 the small trials and successes which marked 
 192
 
 fslo of breams 
 
 the history of her own pictures, and Carrie 
 suffered agonies of repression as she turned 
 from the reading of enthusiastic comment or 
 sympathetic criticism to the writing of plati- 
 tudes of domesticity. 
 
 The pictures gone, a new problem arose. 
 After much careful bookkeeping the conspira- 
 tors found themselves possessed of a sum 
 which quite overwhelmed Carrie until Ford 
 informed her that, with her assistance, he in- 
 tended to spend it all in Katharine Merrill's 
 name, and in ways which she might have 
 chosen, and this before she could return and 
 disclaim it. 
 
 " For it's hers, of course," he explained. 
 " And you know as well as I do that she would 
 never have anything to do with it. So we'll 
 spend it for her, if you don't mind." 
 
 Then Carrie consigned the babies to the care 
 of Denis and delivered herself up to an orgie 
 of extravagance. She and Robert investi- 
 gated charities and attended board meetings. 
 They held long consultations with Jack Ford 
 in his legal and professional capacity. With 
 Drummond she attended art auctions and pur- 
 193
 
 fsle of Breams 
 
 chased tangible Beauty. They visited shops 
 which could find no adequate English for their 
 wares, but described them in foreign tongues 
 and held them at outlandish values. A sub- 
 stantial annuity was settled upon Mrs. Denis. 
 The precarious future of Doris Gwendolin 
 Patricia was made as safe as a steady but 
 modest income could make it. Various pro- 
 tegees of Katharine's were provided for in her 
 name by the untiring Carrie, who discovered 
 and reported to her amused coadjutors that 
 it might be more blessed, but it was certainly 
 more difficult, to give than to receive. " Espe- 
 cially," she added, " to the poor. You know, 
 Tom, that sick girl whom Kate discovered in 
 the square one night and kept in the spare 
 room until she and Denis had coddled her 
 back into as much health as she had ever 
 known " 
 
 " And I remember that you took a hand in 
 the coddling, and that gowns and other com- 
 forts went with her," Drummond amplified. 
 "What has she done?" 
 
 " First she refused to leave town unless her 
 crippled sister could go with her. Then she 
 194
 
 T>he fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 refused to go unless she were allowed to re- 
 gard their fare and board and other expenses 
 in the light of a loan ' to be repaid,' " quoted 
 Carrie with frank tears in her eyes, " ' with 
 interest, just as soon as we get well,' " and 
 Carrie, still frankly, blew her nose and aban- 
 doned herself to tears in the shelter of 
 Drummond's arm. But she was soon suffi- 
 ciently restored to go on with her report on 
 ambitions aided, obstacles removed, comforts 
 provided, and pleasures arranged. " And to 
 think that Kate is missing it all ! " she 
 wailed. " These are the things in all the 
 world which she would most enjoy doing. 
 I think I've remembered everyone in whom 
 she was interested, and I hope I've helped 
 them as she would wish to have them 
 helped." 
 
 But Ford knew of two serious omissions 
 from her list, and to these he had himself 
 attended before securing her cooperation. He 
 had insured a moderate degree of prosper- 
 ity to the Misses Drummond, and the bed in 
 the Children's Hospital had become a little 
 ward where six small sufferers might find 
 195
 
 fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 health. Over its door it bore the name of 
 Katharine Merrill, and on its wall, at a height 
 to which even tired eyes could lift themselves, 
 there hung a vision of sea and sunset called 
 " Silver Sails Come Out of the West." 
 
 196
 
 XVII 
 
 Katharine Merrill came home. 
 She had accomplished all upon 
 which she had set her heart. She 
 had found her talent and proved it before the 
 world. It was May again, and morning as 
 she passed between Fort Wadsworth and Fort 
 Hamilton. She saw that fruit trees were in 
 blossom and that all the world was young. 
 
 She was met by the elder Drummonds, and 
 thought that she detected a new constraint in 
 Carrie's manner, even in the enthusiasm of 
 first greetings. When Drummond had at last 
 obtained their freedom and had bestowed them 
 in a waiting hansom, he bent over his wife : 
 
 " Tell her as soon as you can," he advised. 
 " You don't know when he'll turn up, and you 
 promised to prepare her mind. George, but 
 she's handsome!" 
 
 197
 
 Ssle of ^Dreams 
 
 " You tell her," pleaded Carrie. 
 
 " I'll follow you in half an hour," Drum- 
 mond said to Katharine, ignoring his wife's 
 pleading hand and eyes. " I'll just go to the 
 office to look after my mail," and the cab rat- 
 tled out into the bright sunshine, which even 
 at the city's bedraggled hem was gay and 
 springlike. 
 
 " And how well you look ! " they cried then 
 in coincidental chorus as they turned to sur- 
 vey one another. " How very well you look ! " 
 
 " I am well," Katharine answered. " And 
 I've got those medals and things I went out 
 to seek. And I sold the Salon picture." 
 
 " Oh, you lucky, lucky girl ! " Carrie inter- 
 rupted, seeing safe and foreign conversational 
 ground. " Tell me all about it." 
 
 "There isn't much to tell. I got what I 
 wanted, and somehow, quite suddenly, I found 
 that I did not want it at all. No one was glad. 
 No one really cared except those who were 
 jealous. Altogether it was rather lonely and 
 disappointing. ' Vanity of vanities,' you 
 know." 
 
 " I do not know," her vehement friend re- 
 198
 
 Vhe fsle of <Dreams 
 
 torted. " I think it was perfectly splendid of 
 you to go over there all alone and to work all 
 alone and to win all alone. Instead of crying 
 vanitas, vanitas, you ought to shout veni, vide, 
 vici. I'd give anything for your honors." 
 
 " Tom and the infants, for instance ? " Kath- 
 arine suggested. "Would you sell them for 
 money or fame ? " And Carrie, thinking of a 
 coming interview, smiled and took heart of 
 grace. But she shirked her duty. 
 
 Mrs. Denis threatened to precipitate the ex- 
 planation. When she held her darling once 
 more in her arms and had assured herself that 
 Katharine was well and unchanged, she broke 
 into such a storm of welcome and of grati- 
 tude as aroused the wonder which the trans- 
 formed studio finished. For the place was a 
 very bower of beauty and of apple blossoms, 
 and, above it all, serene, violet cliffed, en- 
 chanting, " The Isle of Dreams " lay on its 
 placid waters, waiting. 
 
 "What does it mean?" Katharine de- 
 manded for the hundredth time. " What's the 
 matter with Denis, and why is that picture 
 here?" 
 
 199
 
 Ssle of 'Dreams 
 
 "You've not seen the infants," Carrie 
 evaded. " Wait a moment. They are dearer 
 than ever." 
 
 So the Misses Drummond stood on plump, 
 white-stockinged legs between their parent 
 and explanation. The manner of the elder 
 Miss Drummond was perfect. She threw her- 
 self upon her restored aunt and shrieked 
 aloud. But the younger Miss Drummond 
 stood and gazed. 
 
 " Come and speak to Aunt Katharine," she 
 was admonished. She only sucked her 
 thumb. 
 
 " You remember Aunt Katharine," her 
 mother charged her. 
 
 " Remember Aunt Katharine," repeated the 
 infant obligingly but vaguely. 
 
 " Who do you love best ? " Mrs. Drummond 
 prompted in an agony. " Who gives you 
 candy ? " 
 
 " I love my Uncle Robert best," the younger 
 Miss Drummond answered with a horrible dis- 
 tinctness. " Wisht he'd come in now with 
 candy." 
 
 "Your Uncle Robert," Katharine repeated 
 200
 
 Sslo of breams 
 
 blankly, and turned to Carrie. " Who is her 
 Uncle Robert?" 
 
 " I'm done for," moaned Carrie, but Drum- 
 mond's entrance saved her. 
 
 "Haven't you done it yet?" he whispered 
 to his wife. " Good Heavens, haven't you 
 done it yet? " 
 
 " No," Carrie answered. " I left it to you. 
 After all, you know, he was your friend." 
 
 " Viper," was his commentary upon this 
 remark. " But it's got to be done. He may 
 be here at any time." 
 
 And they did it. It took tact and time and 
 courage, but in the end it was done. Kath- 
 arine heard the story with scrupulous atten- 
 tion, but she spoke hardly at all. 
 
 " He comes usually at this hour. Shall I 
 stay with you ? " asked the meek Carrie when 
 the ordeal was over. 
 
 " I should prefer not," said Katharine. " I 
 have some thinking and readjusting to do. 
 Somehow he is always demanding readjust- 
 ments of one." 
 
 "Might I suggest," laughed Carrie, who, 
 having confessed and being forgiven, was in 
 20 1
 
 "Uhe fsle of 'Dreams 
 
 a radiant state of self-righteousness, "that 
 you begin with your hair and frock. You 
 must be looking your best just to show him 
 how weak his memory was." 
 
 Katharine banished her with scorn and con- 
 tumely, but when, half an hour later, Mrs. 
 Denis ushered Ford into her darling's pres- 
 ence, even she was surprised at the fairness 
 of the girl who stood at the window with 
 Doris Gwendolin Patricia clinging to her 
 hand. She was clad in pale and shimmering 
 green, and a spray of apple blossoms rose and 
 fell with her quick breathing. 
 
 " Miss Katharine, dear," began Mrs. Denis, 
 " here's the Beautiful Gentleman come to see 
 you," and in the laughter following upon this 
 announcement much of the embarrassment 
 natural to the meeting was lost. 
 
 Denis detached Doris Gwendolin Patricia 
 and left Katharine and Robert face to face 
 upon that equal ground which both had 
 worked so hard to reach. He was the first 
 to speak. 
 
 " A year ago I asked you to listen to an 
 explanation you were to have met me on the 
 202
 
 Ssle of 'Droams 
 
 sea wall in the morning. Can you spare me 
 a few moments now ? " 
 
 " But I am no longer in need of explana- 
 tion," she replied gently. "Believe me, Mr. 
 Ford, Carrie and Tom have just been telling 
 me of the extent of my new indebtedness to 
 you." 
 
 " It was entirely a matter of business and 
 honesty though the combination of terms 
 seems unusual and there is no question of 
 obligation at all. If there were," he laughed 
 as she made a little gesture of dissent, " it 
 would have been all upon my side. I've had 
 what Jack would call 'the time of my life' 
 hustling the art world. But I hope I brought 
 your Fame Boy through it, quite unscathed." 
 
 "You are very good," said Katharine. 
 " We have both been rather busy undoing the 
 work of that little gallery of yours. While 
 you were making me famous, I've been trying 
 to make those pictures something like as val- 
 uable as you thought them." 
 
 " And I've parted with them ! " 
 
 " And I," she supplemented ruefully, " I've 
 ceased to care for fame. In Paris they gave 
 14 203
 
 Ttho Sslo o 
 
 me a medal. That meant fame. And I could 
 find no one to rejoice with me, no one even to 
 dine with me that night. And I dined alone 
 in a restaurant, and realized many things." 
 
 " I think," said Robert Ford, " that I could 
 undertake to rejoice with you, and I should 
 be most happy, if you will allow it, to arrange 
 that you are not again obliged to dine alone." 
 
 " You are very kind," Katharine laughed. 
 
 " No, really," Ford reiterated, " I assure 
 you I shall be most happy." 
 
 204
 
 XVIII 
 
 XT was Friday afternoon again, and 
 all the west was gold when Kath- 
 arine and Robert Ford left the 
 train at the little station and found Pierre 
 waiting for them. 
 
 The Katrinka was at the dock with Captain 
 Jameson in beaming attendance. She was 
 outlined in an array of pennants which seemed 
 to comprise every possible signal in the code 
 of happiness, and, as Katharine stepped 
 aboard, the commodore's flag flew aloft and 
 snapped triumphantly in the breeze. In an 
 ecstasy of pride Captain Jameson fired a sa- 
 lute with a small cannon before trusting him- 
 self to speak. Then he bared his shaggy head 
 and addressed his passenger in the following 
 carefully comprehensive speech : 
 
 " You are hearty welcome back, miss. I've 
 205
 
 fsle of 
 
 took the best of care of this here craft, sir, 
 and you'll excuse me passing the remark that 
 you're as lovely as ever, ma'am." 
 
 " Oh, thank you, captain! " She smiled at 
 him, and then turned to Ford she had de- 
 veloped a habit of turning to Ford while the 
 captain went forward with a boat hook. 
 
 " Robert," said Katharine, but she had not 
 yet learned to say it without a blush, nor had 
 he learned to hear it without a sudden widen- 
 ing of the eyes and lifting of the head. Cap- 
 tain Jameson, looking back, caught these 
 changes in transit, and tried to hide his two 
 hundred blue-clad pounds behind the mast. 
 " Ain't no hurry about casting off," he in- 
 formed the universe at large. " There's lots 
 of daylight left." 
 
 "Robert," began Katharine again, with an 
 air of custom which her eyes still belied, 
 " did you plan all this ? Was it your idea ? " 
 
 " No, really, my sweet Kate," he protested, 
 "Jameson thought of it. I only sent him a 
 wire from Albany that we should be coming 
 home to-day. He did all the rest." 
 
 "With the help, ma'am," Captain Jameson 
 206
 
 Js/ff of 'Dreams 
 
 supplemented, " of Mrs. Jameson, who wished 
 me to present her compliments an' say she is 
 ready if not prevented by Bertha to wait 
 upon you at any time." 
 
 " She is very kind," said Katharine politely. 
 She had never, she reflected, heard that the 
 captain was married ; had bestowed no thought 
 upon his domestic arrangements. The vague- 
 ness of her manner drew him to hold further 
 communion with the universe. " She don't 
 guess it," he pointed out to the encircling 
 horizon; "the very idee ain't crossed her 
 blessed mind," and then reported in a sten- 
 torian bellow, " she's cast off, ma'am. Hard 
 a starboard, if you please." 
 
 But Katharine still turned to Robert. " You 
 must take the wheel," she urged. " You are 
 in command." 
 
 "Then you must set the course. Whither 
 away. Let me hear you say the word." 
 
 " Home, dear," she said obediently, but it 
 was Captain Jameson who steered into the 
 sunset, while his passengers kept up a desul- 
 tory conversation in which silence was as elo- 
 quent as speech. 
 
 207
 
 fsle of 2)r*ams 
 
 "And I was to further say, ma'am," said 
 Captain Jameson, when he considered it again 
 his turn to engage Katharine's attention, " as 
 how Mrs. Jameson and me hopes it don't look 
 to you as something of a liberty: our going 
 through the ceremony the same day and only 
 an hour after yourselves. But, as she says to 
 me often an' often before ever you come home, 
 ma'am, ' I'll never taste happiness until my 
 Lamb is happy, too.' " 
 
 "You don't mean," cried Katharine with 
 kindling eyes, " you can't mean " 
 
 " Besides which," the captain pursued, " she 
 was busy, very busy, as you may remember, 
 ma'am, what with one thing an' another. But 
 she was perticular sot that I should tell you 
 with her love as how she was always ready, 
 as her life's habit was, to wait upon your little 
 wants. She feels that Bertha's experience 
 with Ody Colone, hairdressing and etcetera 
 cannot equal nor ain't expected to equal 
 her own. There was words on this subject 
 between them two females when I was leaving 
 the Island to-day. I don't know, for sure, 
 how they come out, but me an' Mrs. Jameson 
 208
 
 T>he Jsle of Vreams 
 
 has been married five weeks now, an' I have 
 a idee she may git her way." 
 
 " Have you married my Denis ? " demanded 
 Katharine ; and then to Robert : " Did you let 
 him take my Denis away from me ? " 
 
 " He has only brought her home for you," 
 Ford reminded her. " Would you have left 
 her alone in that house? You know it would 
 have been empty for her." 
 
 " Oh, no, not to say took her away from 
 you, ma'am," the captain corroborated. " She 
 can be with you as much as you asks. Me an' 
 Mrs. Jameson an' the little tad " 
 
 "Your other adorer, Doris Gwendolin Pa- 
 tricia," Robert explained. 
 
 " will always take commands as honors," 
 the captain ended in a burst of pride, and re- 
 turned to his official preoccupations. 
 
 " Denis married you without a word to me," 
 Katharine marveled; "what possible reason 
 can she have had for not telling me? I grant 
 you I kept her busy, but that was because I 
 didn't know." 
 
 " She wouldn't have you know beforehand, 
 ma'am," Jameson explained, "nor you 
 209
 
 fste of 'Dream 
 
 neither, sir. She says she has a wonderful 
 way with words, Mrs. Jameson has ' being 
 married is all right for people of our age, 
 Silas, my dear. It's all right an' natural when 
 it's done an' over with. But git tin' married 
 is for young things like Miss Katharine an' 
 Mr. Robert. We'd be two old fools to tell 
 we was goin' to do it. But we'd be a whole 
 lunatic asylum not to do it.' So, when we two 
 saw you two drive away from the church so 
 happy an' so handsome, if you'll excuse my 
 passing the remark, we went back an' was 
 married, as I have the honor to report, right 
 after an' by the same sky pilot. An' I hope 
 you'll agree with me that the second bride 
 warn't bad to look at." 
 
 " Why, she was lovely," cried Katharine, 
 "and Mrs. Drummond planned her dress as 
 carefully as she did mine. And she never 
 told me ! I remember that I was surprised 
 when she did not cry. However, I was glad 
 she didn't; but I remember rather expecting 
 it, and being happily disappointed. But of 
 course she couldn't cry on her wedding 
 day. How I wish I had known! Some one 
 210
 
 fsto of 2)ream* 
 
 should have warned me that she was as busy 
 as I." 
 
 And her memory traveled back to the two 
 months between her return from France and 
 her marriage. Eight weeks of sheer breath- 
 less happiness and hurry for herself and for 
 all her household. How the quiet square had 
 echoed to the snorting of Pierre's motor car, 
 the arriving and departing of delivery wagons, 
 the constant closing of the bright-featured 
 front door! How Carrie Drummond's di- 
 minutive person had disappeared in billows of 
 diaphanous summer shopping, as she devoted 
 her tireless energy and her faultless taste to the 
 superintendence of the trousseau. How the 
 Misses Drummond and Doris Gwendolin Pa- 
 tricia had spurned the fountain, the grass plots, 
 and the garden benches in favor of the hall 
 that thoroughfare for mysterious packages 
 and hurrying servants. How with each suc- 
 ceeding day the thermometer mounted and the 
 excitement followed it until the quiet old house 
 was changed to a seething furnace. But every 
 day brought its quiet hour when Robert came, 
 and restored peace and sanity while his visit 
 
 211
 
 "Uhe Sale of 
 
 endured. Then would the younger Miss Drum- 
 mond have her little moment of importance. 
 She would patter down to the waiting car and 
 followed and admired, but never emulated 
 by the elder Miss Drummond and Doris Gwen- 
 dolin Patricia she would proceed to beguile 
 the leisure or to cheer tire occupations of the 
 waiting Pierre. Then would the feet of the 
 maids cease from destroying the carpet upon 
 the stairs. Then would parcels be allowed to 
 accumulate unchallenged in the darkened re- 
 ception room. Then would Carrie Drummond 
 bestow an errant thought upon her own 
 much-neglected career, and all things fall 
 into their accustomed ways until the gentle 
 splashing of the fountain was heard again in 
 the house. 
 
 And through all the turmoil and clash of 
 these eight weeks, Mrs. Denis had moved, se- 
 rene, dignified, and bland. This placidity was 
 so unexpected in one of her nurse's race and 
 romanticism that Katharine had wondered if 
 it were not a pose assumed and retained at 
 the cost of herculean repression, and leading 
 straight to hysterical collapse. 
 212
 
 fsle of ^Dreams 
 
 Another alteration appeared in Mrs. Denis's 
 psychic attitude at the same time. She devel- 
 oped a positive craving for " dangerous look- 
 in' signs," and would point out to Robert the 
 rare occasions upon which she considered that 
 he had not done his full duty as an ardent 
 lover should. 
 
 " Leaving so soon, sir ! " she would remon- 
 strate when some detail of his lady's pleasure 
 or his own business caused him to curtail his 
 visit. " Twenty-seven minutes is but a short 
 time to spend in a maiden's bower when dec- 
 orated especial for your coming. And I 
 should like you to know, sir," she would add 
 when occasion demanded, " that the violets 
 laid this morning at her feet was not as fresh 
 as might be desired to express the thoughts of 
 love. And there was a day last week when 
 your daily letter was not in the first mail. It 
 come in the second, but a hour's wait is try- 
 ing to the feelings." 
 
 " I telephoned," Ford would explain in 
 
 smiling extenuation, and even the exacting 
 
 Mrs. Denis had admitted that his speech, his 
 
 manner, and his habits had bristled with 
 
 213
 
 "Uho fsle of Breams 
 
 alarming symptoms. So she had gone plac- 
 idly and consequentially through all vicissi- 
 tudes of joy, of shopping, of merrymaking, 
 and packing, upheld by the different but no 
 less constant manifestations of Captain Jame- 
 son's regard. His letters were in the abbre- 
 viated form of a ship's log, and the blossoms 
 of his affection took the more enduring form 
 of sea shells or the full-rigged models of his- 
 toric vessels. 
 
 " Dear old Denis, too," mused Katharine. 
 " I think, Robert, that you are a very won- 
 derful man. You think of everybody make 
 everybody happy." 
 
 " Myself most of all, sweet Kate," he an- 
 swered ; " always myself most of all." 
 
 The Katrinka was approaching the Island, 
 and the house showed very white and cool 
 among its trees and gardens when Katharine 
 spoke again. 
 
 " It is very beautiful," she breathed, 
 "more beautiful even than I remembered 
 it. It looks hardly real in all that shining 
 light." 
 
 " It is real, my fair Kate," her husband as- 
 214
 
 fsle of 
 
 sured her. " Long ago you showed me the 
 wonders of ' The Isle of Dreams/ and now 
 I'm taking you to the Island where the dreams 
 come true." 
 
 (i) 
 
 THE END 
 
 215
 
 By DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS. 
 
 The Second Generation. 
 
 Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " The Second Generation " is a double-decked romance 
 in one volume, telling the two tove-stories of a young 
 American and his sister, reared in luxury and suddenly left 
 without means by their father, who felt that money was 
 proving their ruination and disinherited them for their own 
 sakes. Their struggle for life, love and happiness makes a 
 powerful love-story of the middle West. 
 
 "The book equals the best of the great story tellers of all 
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 " ' The Second Generation ,' by David Graham Phillips, is not 
 only the most important novel of the new year, but it is one of the 
 most important ones of a number of years past." 
 
 Philadelphia Inquirer, 
 
 " A thoroughly American book is ' The Second Generation.' 
 . . . The characters are drawn with force and discrimination." 
 
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 "Mr. Phillips' book is thoughtful, well conceived, admirably 
 written and intensely interesting. The story 'works out' well, 
 and though it is made to sustain the theory of the writer it does 
 so in a very natural and stimulating manner. In the writing of the 
 ' problem novel ' Mr. Phillips has won a foremost place among our 
 younger American authors." Boston Herald. 
 
 " ' The Second Generation ' promises to become one of the nota- 
 ble novels of the year. It will be read and discussed while a less 
 vigorous novel will be forgotten within a week." 
 
 Springfield Union. 
 
 " David Graham Phillips has a way, a most clever and convinc- 
 ing way, of cutting through the veneer of snobbishness and bringing 
 real men and women to the surface. He strikes at shams, yet has 
 a wholesome belief in the people behind them, and he forces them 
 to justify his good opinions." Kansas City Times. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
 
 THE LEADING NOVEL OF TODAY. 
 
 The Fighting Chance. 
 
 By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS. Illustrated by A. B. 
 Wenzell. I2mo. Ornamental Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 In "The Fighting Chance" Mr. Chambers has taken 
 for his hero, a young fellow who has inherited with his 
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 meeting on the brink of ruin, fight out their battles, two 
 weaknesses joined with love to make a strength. It is re- 
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 The rich have their longings, their ideals, their regrets, 
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