Ainslee's magazine, Volume 16, No. 3, October, 1905

“It’s curious,” she continued, “about you twins: that Elenore has all her father’s love of adventure and his executive ability, for all her girlishness; and you have your mother’s talent and her tastes. You couldn’t be more different, and yet you look as much alike as you did when you were tots. I remember the first time your mother brought you east. Your Uncle Dick – well, your Uncle Dick thought rock-and-rye a splendid tonic for other people, but personally he took it without the rock, which he thought might be indigestible – and he looked at you both as you stood there side by side. And he said: ‘Bring on your blue ribbons. I can see two of them.’”

“Why, Mrs. Van Velt, and so early in the day, too!” said a gay voice behind her, a voice so like Carrington’s that it seemed his echo; and Elenore Carrington came forward to kiss the dowager on both cheeks.

As Mrs. Van Velt had said, the resemblance between the twins was remarkable.

They had the same height, the same coloring, the same blue eyes that had a trick of turning violet under emotion; the same delicate arch to the eyebrows; the same wavy line of hair upon the forehead; the same buoyant poise of body. Even a certain quick suppleness of motion belonged to them both; and, stranger still, their hands were wonderfully like.

The artistic impulse that gave to Ned’s a certain femininity in slenderness and taper fingers was curiously balanced by a strain of resourcefulness which lent to Elenore’s well-shaped white palms so strong a resemblance to her twin’s that it was only by putting them side by side and noting that hers were a bit smaller, a shade more femininely modeled, a trifle more delicately cushioned, that they were distinguishable.

The black locks that Carrington permitted to wave back just enough for picturesqueness, with no trace of the bizarre or of unkemptness, gave to his face a boyishness that carried a suggestion of eternal youth.

But Elenore’s dark hair was coiled low in the nape of her neck, and her manner was as feminine as was her distinctly smart and frilly pale blue chiffon frock.

“I’m glad,” Elenore went on, chaffingly, “that Aunt Sarah is safely on her way to the North Cape and cannot hear you describe your shocking condition.”

“Bless you, child,” said Mrs. Van Velt, promptly. “You’re altogether too good-looking. You ought to wear a veil. That’s what young Hastings thinks, I hear. He’s confided in Carol. And anyone who would confide in Carol must be laboring under strong mental excitement. And so your Aunt Sarah has really started for the North Cape! Women as plain as Sarah Moore are always pretending to be absorbed in the beauties of nature, but they are really trying to get their own minds and yours away from such sensitive subjects as snub noses.”

“Where is Carol?” demanded Elenore, laughingly. “Isn’t she coming to say good-by to Ned and me?”

“Carol seems to be putting in a stitch in time with that young sewing machine,” said Mrs. Van Velt, unperturbed. “She’s like her father. He never could bear to see machinery idle.”

Elenore looked up at her smilingly from the place she had taken at the tea table. The samovar was steaming gayly, and the girl’s white hands moved with housewifely deftness as she prepared to make tea. They were firm, capable hands, that it was a pleasure to watch.

The portières swung back with a decided flourish to admit a short, bright-eyed, gray-headed, animated old gentleman, who came forward with the buoyancy of a boy.

“Here I am, cher Edouard,” cried Velantour, gayly. “Mademoiselle, mes hommages, I come exprès to assure you that I shall take the bes’ of care of this brother of yours.”

“Mrs. Van Velt,” said Carrington, putting his hand affectionately on old Velantour’s arm, “I present to you Monsieur Velantour, the master of painting in France.”

“Madame,” said Velantour, courtly in turn, “I presen’ to you Monsieur Edouard Carrington, a nouveau maître of whom America will one day be very proud.

“You have a daughter, madame?” he added, gravely.

“Somewhere,” said Mrs. Van Velt, calmly.

“C’est ça!” said Velantour. “I fall over two young peopl’ in the hall as I enter – young Monsieur Parker and a young lady – and the young lady say: ‘Oh, Monsieur Velantour, will you tell mother I’ll be in in a minute?’ And Monsieur Parker say: ‘So soon as she have finish’ winding the bobbin.’”

“It’s all right, Mrs. Van Velt,” said Carrington, amusedly. “Bobbins is decidedly an eligible.”

“What is that, an eligible?” demanded Velantour, puzzled to know what could justify such calm.

“Well, in America, Monsieur Velantour,” Mrs. Van Velt informed him, “an eligible is an attractive man entirely surrounded by daughters – other people’s daughters.”

“When mother begins to talk about other people’s daughters it’s always time for me to appear,” announced Miss Carol Van Velt, entering gayly.

Bobbins, radiant, was just back of her; and a tall, serious, thoroughbred young fellow followed them.

Carol Van Velt was a remarkably pretty blonde, who looked delightfully ingénue, but was entirely capable of managing most masculinity. She accepted admiration as nonchalantly as she did bonbons, and considered that the sources of supply of both were unlimited. Experience seemed to prove that this theory was correct.

“We saw, anyway, that we were just being used as stepping-stones to higher things,” she went on; “so we thought we might as well come in with Mr. Hastings.”

She sank gracefully down on one end of a large divan, and drew her skirts aside with a gesture that assumed matter-of-factly that Bobbins would occupy the other half of the seat. He justified the conclusion with a promptness which left no doubt that he regarded it as a heaven-sent opportunity.

“Not that we minded being an angels’ ladder,” he asserted, cheerfully, “but I thought from Hastings’ cast of countenance that he might be going to give you a few scenes from ‘Hamlet,’ and I didn’t think it was safe to be sitting behind a curtain when he got to that part about Polonius.”

Velantour regarded them with that awe which a Frenchman must feel for the rollicking frivolity of the American young and the placid inefficiency of the American parent.

Meantime Hastings had made his way to Elenore and slipped into a vacant chair by the tea table, as a matter of course.

She smiled at him very charmingly.

“You’re late,” she said, “and you were coming early, you know. Do you think you deserve caravan tea with a dash of burgundy in it?”

“I think I deserve all the good things I can get to-day,” he said, and though his tone was light, there was an undertone that suggested that he meant it.

“It tastes to me more like burgundy with a dash of caravan tea,” said Mrs. Van Velt. “After a while they will forget to put in the tea at all.”

“And then, Monsieur Velantour?” said Carrington, amusedly; for the old Frenchman was sipping the mixture cautiously.

“Then it will not need mademoiselle’s hands to make it perfection,” said Velantour, with a humorous twist of his keen old lips.

His gray eyes gleamed as they applauded him laughingly. Age had intensified in him the love of appreciation which is innate in the Gallic heart.

“While we have tea, let us have toast,” said Bobbins, promptly. “I propose a toast to Monsieur Velantour. Turn it into rhyme, Ned. You’re a crack improvisatore.”

Carrington stood up, with the easy grace of an Italian. He had the temperament of a troubadour, and he loved in turn a compliment.

“To Monsieur Velantour” (he began) “whose name
Is but a synonym for fame – ”

He had the improvisatore’s trick of lingering on the final syllable until it brought its own suggestion.

“Bravo!” they applauded him; while Velantour enjoyed the adulation with the frankness of a child.

“So irresistible that Art” (he glanced with gay raillery at Velantour)
“Quite womanlike, has lost her heart.
Yet knows it in his keeping, sure.
A health to Monsieur Velantour!”

They drank it in hilarious mood.

Velantour was on his feet the next instant.

“If I could but make one littl’ Americain verse,” he implored, expansively. “But I speak so poorly. You mus’ help me a littl’.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Van Velt, practically, “you have to begin with the street he lives on, or something like that. Rue Boissonade– ” she began, and halted.

“Shall have its Claude,” suggested Bobbins.