“Never mind,” Dal said reassuringly.  “He can borrow Aunt Selina’s comfort.  Make the old lady discard from weakness.  Anyhow, Bella, if I know anything of human nature, the old lady will make it hot enough for him.  Poor old Jim!”

Then they shook hands again, and with that there came a terrible banging at the door, which we had locked.

“Open the door!” some one commanded.  It was one of the guards.

“Open it yourself!” Dallas called, moving a kitchen table to reenforce the lock.

“Open that door or we will break it in!”

Dallas put his hands in his pockets, seated himself on the table, and whistled cheerfully.  We could hear them conferring outside, and they made another appeal which was refused.  Suddenly Bella came over and confronted Dallas.

“They have brought them back!” she said dramatically.  “They are out there now; I distinctly heard Jim’s voice.  Open that door, Dallas!”

“Oh, don’t let them in!” I wailed.  It was quite involuntary, but the disappointment was too awful.  “Dallas, don’t open that door!”

Dal swung his feet and smiled from Bella to me.

“Think what a solution it is to all our difficulties,” he said easily.  “Without Aunt Selina I could be happy here indefinitely.”

There was more knocking, and somebody—­Max, I think—­said to let them in, that it was a fool thing anyhow, and that he wanted to go to bed and forget it; his feet were cold.  And just then there was a crash, and part of one of the windows fell in.  The next blow from outside brought the rest of the glass, and—­somebody was coming through, feet first.  It was Jim.

He did not speak to any of us, but turned and helped in a bundle of red and yellow silk comfort that proved to be Aunt Selina, also feet first.  I had a glimpse of a half-dozen heads outside, guards and reporters.  Then Jim jerked the shade down and unswathed Aunt Selina’s legs so that she could walk, offered his arm, and stalked past us and upstairs, without a word!

None of us spoke.  We turned out the lights and went upstairs and took off our wraps and went to bed.  It had been almost a fiasco.

Chapter XV.  SUSPICION AND DISCORD

Every one was nasty the next morning.  Aunt Selina declared that her feet were frost-bitten and kept Bella rubbing them with ice water all morning.  And Jim was impossible.  He refused to speak to any of us and he watched Bella furtively, as if he suspected her of trying to get him out of the house.

When luncheon time came around and he had shown no indication of going to the telephone and ordering it, we had a conclave, and Max was chosen to remind him of the hour.  Jim was shut in the studio, and we waited together in the hall while Max went up.  When he came down he was somewhat ruffled.

“He wouldn’t open the door,” he reported, “and when I told him it was meal time, he said he wasn’t hungry, and he didn’t give a whoop about the rest of us.  He had asked us here to dinner; he hadn’t proposed to adopt us.”