Hours later, one by one the lights in the houses along the avenue twinkled out and the street lay in the grasp of the after midnight silence.  Only a bright light still burned at the major’s table, which was piled high with books into which he was delving with the hunger of many long hours of deprivation strong upon him.  He had scouted the idea of the ball, had donned dressing-gown and slippers and gone back to the company of his Immortals with alacrity.  On their return Mrs. Buchanan and the girls had found him buried in his tomes ten deep and it was with difficulty that Phoebe, kneeling beside him on one side, and Caroline on the other, made him listen to their joint tale of modern romance, to which Mrs. Matilda played the part of a joyous commentator.

To Phoebe he was merciless and a war of wits made the library echo with its give and take.

“Of course, my dear Phoebe,” he said, “it is an established fact that a man and his wife are one, and if you will just let that one be Judge Kildare semi-occasionally it will more than content him, I’m sure.”

“Why, Major, can’t you trust me to be a good—­wife to David?  Don’t be unkind to me!  I’ll promise to—­to—­”

“Don’t, Phoebe, don’t!  That ‘love, honor and obey’ clause is the direct cause of all the woman legislation ever undertaken—­and it holds a remarkably short time after marriage as a general thing.  Now there’s Matilda—­for over thirty-five years I’ve—­But where is Andrew?” he demanded anxiously.

“Andy,” answered David with the greatest delight in his happy eyes and the red lock rampant over his brow, “is sitting on the end of a hard bench down at the telegraph office trying to get a cable through to his chief for permission to wait over for a steamer that sails for Panama two weeks from to-day.”

“What?” demanded the major in surprise, looking at Caroline.

“Oh, she’s going with him—­there are no frills to the affection of Caroline Darrah!  She’ll be bending over his camp-fire yanking out his hot tamales in less than a month—­glad to do it.  Won’t you, beautiful?” answered David gleefully to Caroline’s beautiful confusion.

“David Kildare,” observed the major with the utmost solemnity, “when a man and woman embark with love at the rudder it is well the Almighty controls the wind and the tides.”

“I know, Major, I know and I’m scared some, only I’m counting on Phoebe’s chart and the stars.  I’m just the jolly paddler,” answered David with a laugh across at Phoebe.

“Well,” remarked the major judicially, “I think she will be able to accomplish the course if undisturbed.  It will behoove you, however, to remember that husband love is a steady combustion, not a conflagration.”

“What do you call a love that has burned constantly for between ten and fifteen years, Major?” asked David as he smiled into the keen old eyes that held his.

“That,” answered the major, “is a fire fit to light an altar, sir.”