u, and were lionized," said the
other woman, vigorously.

"Oh, not then! No, I'd been meaning to go--and meaning to go--all those
three years. The little sisters used to write me--such forlorn little
letters!--and mother, too--but I couldn't manage it. And then--the very
night 'Jack' played the three hundredth time, as it happened--I had
this long wire from Sally and Beth. Mother was very ill, wanted
me--they'd meet a certain train, they were counting the hours--"

Miss Ives demolished her watercourse with a single sweep of her palm.
There was a short silence.

"Well!" she said, breaking it. "Mother got well, as it happened, and I
went home two months later. I had the guest room, I remember. Sally was
everything to mother then, and I tried to feel glad. Beth was engaged.
Every one was very flattering and very kind in the intervals left by
engagements and weddings and new babies and family gatherings. Then I
came back to 'Jack,' and we went on the road. And then I broke down and
a strange doctor in a strange hospital put me together again," she went
on with a flashing smile and a sudden change of tone, "and his wholly
adorable wife sent me double white violets! And they--the Arbuthnots,
not the violets--were the nicest thing that ever happened to me!"

"So that was the way of it?" said the doctor.

"That was the way of it."

"And as the Duchess would say, the moral of THAT is--?"

"The moral is for me. Or else it's for little dancing girls, I don't
know which." Miss Ives wiped her eyes openly and, restoring her
handkerchief to its place, announced that she perceived she had been
talking too much.

Presently the Dancing Girl came down from the tennis-court, with her
devoted new captive in tow. The captive, a fat, amiable-looking youth,
was warm and wilted, but the girl was fresh and buoyant as ever. They
heard her allude to the "second two-step" and something was said of the
"supper dance," but her laughing voice stopped as she and her escort
came nearer the actress, and she gave Julie her usual look of mute
adoration. The boy, flushing youthfully, lifted his hat, and Julie
bowed briefly.

They were lingering over their coffee two hours later, when the newly
arrived young man made the expected move. He threaded the tables
between his own and the doctor's carefully, the eager Dancing Girl in
his wake.

"I don't know whether you remember me, Miss Ives--?" he began, when he
could extend a hand.

Julie turned h