“Love her a great deal, Duane,” she said in a low voice; “she needs it.”

“I could not help doing it.”

But Kathleen repeated: 

“Love her enough.  She will be yours to make—­yours to unmake, to mould, fashion, remould—­with God’s good help.  Love her enough.”

“Yes,” he said, very soberly.

A slight constraint fell between them; they spoke of the fete, and Kathleen presently left to superintend details which never worried her, never disturbed the gay and youthful confidence which had always from the beginning marked her successful superintendence of the house of Seagrave.

Geraldine and Scott were very busy playing hostess and host, receiving new-comers, renewing friendships interrupted by half a summer’s separation; but there was very little to do except to be affable, for Kathleen’s staff of domestics was perfectly adequate—­the old servants of the house of Seagrave, who were quite able by themselves to maintain the household traditions and whip into line of duty the new and less conscientious recruits below stairs.

A great many people were gathered on the terrace when Duane descended the stairs, on his way to inspect his temporary quarters in Miller’s loft, at Hurryon Lodge.

He stopped and spoke to many, greeted Delancy Grandcourt’s loquacious and rotund mother, politely listened to her scandalous budget of gossip, shook hands cordially with her big, handsome daughter, Catharine, a strapping girl, with the shyly honest eyes of her brother and the rather heavy but shapely body and limbs of an indolent Juno.  A harsh voice pronounced his name; old Mr. Tappan extended a dry hand and bored him through with eyes like holes burnt in a blanket.

“And do you still cultiwate the fine arts, young man?” he inquired, as sternly as though he privately suspected Duane of maltreating them.

Duane shook hands with him.

“The school of the indiwidool,” continued Mr. Tappan, “is what artists need.  Woo the muses in solitude; cultiwate ’em in isolation.  Didn’t Benjamin West live out in the backwoods?  And I guess he managed to make good without raising hell in the Eekole di Boze Arts with a lot of dissipated wagabonds at his elbow, inculcating immoral precepts and wasting his time and his father’s money.”

And he looked very hard at Duane, who winced, but agreed with him solemnly.

Geraldine, on the edge of a circle of newly arrived guests, leaned over and whispered mischievously: 

“Is that what you did at the Ecole des Beaux Arts?  Did you behave like all that or did you cultivate the indiwidool?”

He shook hands again, solemnly, with Mr. Tappan, stepped back, and joined her.

“Where on earth have you been hiding?” she inquired.

“You said that if I carved certain cabalistic signs on the big beech-tree you would presently appear to me in a pink cloud—­you faithless little wretch!”