The Inner Flame

"You ought to go to see him!"

"So I've heard," with intense sarcasm. "Mother has bored the life out of me."

"It isn't civil not to," said Kathleen, relapsing into languor. "He's a sort of a relative."

"Yes. The sort to keep away from. If I went up there, it would be to take his mahl-stick and smash his face."

"Nice, hospitable plan," remarked Kathleen. "Possibly he wouldn't permit it."

"Oh, I've no doubt he'd think it was real mean and pick up a fan and slap me on the wrist. Oh, forget him! Say, Kath," as if with sudden remembrance, "do you know I came off without my purse to-day?"

The girl's eyes gained a curious expression. She was silent a moment, hands clasped around her knee. Under her gaze her brother picked up the guitar again and his nervous fingers swept the strings.

"I thought you said this was a business trip."

"It is. Go down and ask them at the bank if I didn't put a bee in their bonnet this morning."

"Then the house pays your expenses. Your purse didn't have to suffer."

"Oh, well, if you want the literal truth, I'm flat broke."

"You always are flat broke at this time in the month. Why shouldn't I be? – as a matter of fact, I am."

Edgar frowned. "What have you been buying?"

"A new microscope. I've saved for it, Edgar."

The girl cast a warm glance across the room to where, on a table, stood a tall slender object covered with a cloth.

"Saved for it!" was the disgusted response. "Shameful idea when the Ad. could just as well buy you an observatory."

"I don't believe father is nearly as rich as you think he is," said the girl defensively.

"He's the prize tight-wad. That's what he is. Look at our summers! Isn't it enough that instead of Newport the Fabians rusticate on Brewster's Island?"

"He met mother there. He loves it."

"Well, I can tell you, mother would exchange a whole lot of sentiment for one good whirl at Newport or some other place where there are live ones! Say, Kath, be a good fellow. You can spare a dime or so. Ten dollars would be better than nothing. I'll give it back the first of the month, honor bright. Think of my having to depend on taxis! It would make angels weep."

The sister continued to regard him and he reddened under the pensive gaze, and twanged the guitar.

"You never have paid me back the first of the month and I wish you wouldn't promise," she said at last; "but I'll tell you what I'll do. I'm coming home to spend Sunday and I will give you the ten dollars – it's all I have just now – if you will take me to see that cousin of ours."

"What cousin?" asked Edgar.

"Aunt Mary's heir. The artist."

"Why are you determined to stuff him down my throat? He is absolutely no kin to us and has no demand on us. I decline."

"Then I shall go with mother," declared Kathleen, in her laziest drawl. "I'm sure she will take me. I am interested in his determination. I want to see – his oil stove. I want to pat Pegasus."

"Go, then, and much good may it do you!" Edgar put down the guitar and started up. "Where's the ten, Kath? Awful sorry to bother you."

The girl did not rise. She shook her head.

"You haven't earned it. I've decided you must work for this one, before it follows its predecessors to that bourne from which no bank-note returneth."

There was an unusual sparkle in the eyes that met the blue ones.

"You said you could go with mother," protested Edgar.

"I can if I have to, but I prefer to hunt up stables with a man."

"Oh, confound it! you always get your own way. Fork over, then. I'll go with you; but it just means fastening him right on us. We'll be cousins then for sure."

Kathleen went to her closet and reappeared with the ten dollar bill. With a gesture of farewell she touched her finger to her lips and bestowed the kiss on the bank-note.

Her brother looked at his watch.

"Great Scott! I've got to hike for that train," he said; and wriggling into his overcoat he kissed his sister's cheek, and hurried away.

CHAPTER VII

THE FLITTING

It was Eliza's last day in the apartment. Out of respect to probable scruples on the part of her future hostess as to travelling on Sunday, she had planned to sit idle this Sabbath day, although everything was packed and she was ready to start.

By Mrs. Wright's advice she had sold nearly all the shabby furnishings of the apartment. She had eaten a picnic luncheon in the forlorn kitchen, from whence even the gambolling kittens had fled to the bottom of Eliza's trunk, and now sat on a camp-chair in the middle of the empty parlor, as solitary as Alexander Selkirk on his island, monarch of all she surveyed, which was a pair of green eyes glowering at her from behind the wire network in the side of a wicker basket, which reposed on the only other chair in the room.

Stern and inexorable looked Eliza sitting in state on the camp-chair, and furious glared the jewel eyes back at her.

"You've got to get used to it, Pluto," she said. "Do you suppose I like it any better than you do? I don't know as you're so bad off either. I think I'd like to be put in a bag and carried to Brewster's Island with no care of cars or boats or anything else. You always do get the best of it."

Eliza looked very haggard. It had been a wrenching week, packing her dear one's belongings, and selling into careless, grudging hands the old furniture with its tender associations.

Philip had been too busy to come to her aid. They had exchanged notes. She had addressed him at the Fabians', and he had replied that he had taken a room, and asked that his belongings be stacked up somewhere. He promised that he would come for them early Sunday afternoon.

So now she was waiting, her capable hands folded in her black alpaca lap, and her face expressing endurance.

"I'm countin' the hours, Pluto," she declared. "This place is misery to me now. I feel just as much in a strange garret as you do in that basket. I just wish Mr. Sidney'd come and take his things and then there won't be much more daylight to look around here in. And I hope you won't act like all possessed when we start for the train nor when we get on it."

"Meow!" cried Pluto, exasperated.

"There now!" exclaimed Eliza, in trepidation – "you do that just once when the train's standin' still, and where'll we be! I've always thought you had a little more intelligence than the law allows; and if you go to actin' like an alley cat you'll disappoint me dreadfully!"

Eliza rose anxiously and threw herself on her knees beside the basket and opened it. Pluto sprang out, and she caught him and pressed her thin cheek against his fur in a rare caress. Her eyes stung in her effort to repress tears.

"Oh, law! I'm sick o' myself," she muttered. "Cryin'! cryin'! gracious, what a fool! I'd ought to sold you to somebody, I suppose," – she clung tighter to the handsome creature and buried her eyes in his glossy coat, – "or given you away, more likely. Who'd want to pay anything for a cat that don't know how bothersome it's goin' to be to get the right train, and hasn't the decency to keep his mouth shut, and – Oh!" as a knock sounded on the door. "There he is now."