The major laughed delightedly.  “Phoebe, some day you will be held responsible for David Kildare’s—­”

“But, my dear Major,” interrupted Phoebe, “how could I be expected to work all day for raiment and food, with malted milk and eggs at the price they are now, and then be responsible for such a perfectly irresponsible person as David Kildare?  Why, just yesterday, while I was writing up the Farrell débutante tea with the devil waiting at my elbows for copy and the composing room in a stew, he called me twice over the wire.  He knew better, but didn’t care.”

“Still, my dear, still it’s love,” said the major as he looked at her thoughtfully and dropped the banter that had been in his voice since she had come in.  “A boy’s?  Perhaps, but I think not.  You’ll see!  It’s a call, a call that must be answered some time, child—­and a mystery.”  For a moment the major sat and looked deep into the gray eyes raised to his in quick responsiveness to the change in his mood.  “Don’t trifle with love, girl, it’s God Almighty’s dower to a woman.  It’s hers; though she pays a bitter price for it.  It’s a wonder and a worker of wonders.  It has all come home to me to-day and I think you will understand when I tell you about—­”

“Major,” interrupted Tempie with a broad grin on her black face, “Mr. Dave, he done telephoned fer you ter keep Miss Phoebe till he gits here.  He says he’ll hold you and me ’sponsible, sir.”

A quick flush rose to Phoebe’s cheeks and she laughed as she collected her notebook and pinned down her veil all at the same tune with a view to instant flight.  She gave neither the major nor Tempie time for remonstrance.

“Good-by!” she called from the hall.  “I only came in to tell Mrs. Matilda that I would meet her at the Cantrell tea at five-fifteen and afterward we could make that visit together.  The muffins were divine!”

“Tempie,” remarked the major as he looked up at her over the devastated table with an imperturbable smile, “I have decided positively that women are just half-breed angels with devil markings all over their dispositions.”

And having received which admonition with the deepest respect, Tempie immediately fell into a perfect whirlwind of guest preparations which involved the pompous Jefferson, her husband, and the meek Jane, her daughter.  The major issued her numberless, perfectly impossible but solicitous orders and then retired to his library chair with his mind at ease and his books at hand.

And it was in the violet flamed dusk as he sat with his immortal friends ranged around that Mrs. Matilda brought the treasure home to him.  She was a very lovely thing, a fragrant flower of a woman with the tender shyness of a child in her manner as she laid her hands in his outheld to her with his courtly old-world grace.

“My dear, my dear,” he said as he drew her near to him, “here’s a welcome that’s been ready for you twenty years, you slip of a girl you, with your mother’s eyes.  Did you think you could get away from Matilda and me when we’ve been waiting for you all this time?”