h of pleasure. She was the
Parisian, as Osmond had perhaps imagined her in his jesting fancy,
regnant, subtle, even a little hard. Electra felt for a moment as if it
were wise to be afraid of her. But they sat down, and she essayed the
safe remark,--

"I believe luncheon is late."

"What have you been doing with yourself, my dear?" Madam Fulton asked
Rose, who was looking from one to another with an accessible brightness,
as if she only wanted a chance to respond to everything beautifully. She
bent a little, deferentially, toward Madam Fulton.

"Reading aloud this morning," she said, "to grannie."

"You call her grannie, do you?"

"I begged to. I adore her."

"Does she like it?"

"Oh, yes, she likes it," Rose returned, with her lovely smile. "Don't
you think she likes it?"

"I know she does. That's what I can't understand. Every time I hear
Electra say 'grandmother' it's like a nail in my coffin."

"Grandmother!" exclaimed Electra, in an instant and quite honest
deprecation.

"That's it, my dear," nodded the old lady. "That's precisely it. Nail me
down."

Then luncheon was announced, and they went out, Rose with that instant
deference toward Madam Fulton which suggested a hundred services while
she delicately refrained from doing one.

"I know you," said the old lady dryly, after they had sat down. "I know
quite well what you are."

"What, please?" asked Rose, bending on her that warm look which was yet
never too flattering, and still promised an incense of personal regard
not to be spoiled by deeds.

"I know exactly what you are," said the old lady, with her incisive
kindliness. "You're a charmer."

Instantly Rose flushed all over her face, a flooding red. With the word
she remembered the other voice out of the moonlit night, telling her the
same thing. Now it was almost an accusation. Then it was a caressing
loveliness of the night, as if an unseen hand had crowned her with a
chaplet, dripping fragrance. In that instant, with a throb of haste and
longing, she was away from the circle of these alien souls, back in the
night where voice had answered voice. It was immediately as if she were
hearing his call to her. "I will come to-night, to-night," she heard her
heart repeating. "Did you wait for me last night, dear playmate, alone
in the dark and stillness? And the night before? Did you think I was
never coming? I will come to-night."

Meantime Billy Stark, seeing the blush and knowing it meant dis