sible from the idea that the estate was
under siege; that Alice was the chatelaine of a beleaguered castle, and
that before help could reach us we were in danger of being starved out
by the enemy. They called into play the poetry which had so roused
Antoine's apprehensions, and their talk bristled with quotations. Alice
rose after the salad and repeated at least a page of Malory, and the
Knights of the Round Table having thus been introduced, Mrs. Farnsworth
recited several sonorous passages from "The Idyls of the King." They
flung lines from Browning's "In a Balcony" at each other as though they
were improvising. The befuddlement of Antoine and the waiter who
assisted him added to the general joy. They undoubtedly thought the two
women quite out of their heads, and it was plain that I suffered greatly
in Antoine's estimation by my encouragement of this frivolity. Mrs.
Farnsworth walked majestically round the table and addressed to me the
lines from Macbeth beginning:

"Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised,"

while Antoine clung to the sideboard listening with mouth open and eyes
rolling.

Later, in the living-room, Alice sang some old ballads. She was more
adorable than ever at the piano. It was a happiness beyond any in my
experience of women to watch her, to note the play of light upon her
golden head, to yield to the spell of her voice. Ballads had never been
sung before with the charm and feeling she put into them; and after
ending with "Douglas, Douglas," she responded to my importunity with
"Ben Bolt," and then dashed into a sparkling thing of Chopin's, played
it brilliantly and rose, laughingly mocking my applause.

I left the house like a man over whom an enchantment has been spoken and
was not pleased when Antoine blocked my path: "Pardon me, sir."

"Bother my pardon; what's troubling you now?" I demanded.

"It's nothing troubling me, sir; not particularly. If you give me time,
I think I'll grow used to the poetry talk and playing at being queens.
It's like children in a family I served once; an English family, most
respectable. But in a widow, sir----"

"God knows we ought to be glad when grown-ups have the heart to play at
being children and can get away with it as beautifully as those women
do! What else is on your mind?"

"It's about Elsie, sir." I groaned at the mention of Flynn's German
wife. "I'm sorry, sir; but I thought I should report it. It was a man
who came