Poor Alix—­she was taking life seriously enough to-night, Peter thought, as he watched her.

“Tell me about Cherry,” he said.

“Cherry is well, but just a little thin, and heart-broken now, of course.  Martin never seems to stay at any one place very long, so I keep hoping—­”

“Doesn’t make good!” Peter said, shaking his head.

“Doesn’t seem to!  It’s partly Cherry, I think,” Alix said honestly.  “She was too young, really.  She never quite settles down, or takes life in earnest.  But he’s got a contract now for three years, and so she seems to be resigning herself, and she has a maid, I believe.”

“She must love him,” Peter submitted.  Alix looked surprised.

“Why not?” she smiled.  “I suppose when you’ve had ups and downs with a man, and been rich and poor, and sick and well, and have lived in half-a-dozen different places, you rather take him for granted!” she added.

“Oh, you think it works that way?” Peter asked, with a keen look.

“Well, don’t you think so?  Aren’t lots of marriages like that?”

“You false alarm.  You quitter!” he answered.

Alix laughed, a trifle guiltily.  Also she flushed, with a great wave of splendid young colour that made her face look seventeen again.  “Your father left you—­something, Alix?” Peter asked presently, with some hesitation.

“That,” she answered frankly, “is where Anne comes in!”

“Anne?”

“Anne and Justin came straight over,” Alix went on, “and they were really lovely.  And they asked me to come to them for a visit—­but I couldn’t very well; they live with his mother, you know, Amanda Price Little, who writes the letters to the Chronicle about educating children and all that.  Doctor Younger and George Sewall were here every day; you and George were named as executors.  I was so mixed up in policies and deeds and overdue taxes and interest and bonds—­”

“Poor old Alix, if I had only been here to help you!” the man said.  And for a moment they looked a little consciously at each other.

“Well, anyway,” the girl resumed hastily, “when it came to reading the will, Anne and Justin sprung a mine under us!  It seems that ten years ago, when the Strickland Patent Fire Extinguisher was put upon the market, my adorable father didn’t have much money—­he never did have, somehow.  So Anne’s father, my Uncle Vincent, went into it with him to the extent of about three thousand dollars—­”

“Three thousand!” Peter, who had been leaning forward, earnestly attentive, echoed in relief.

“That was all.  Dad had about three hundred.  They had to have a laboratory and some expensive retorts and things, it seems.  Dad did all the work, and put in his three hundred, and Uncle Vincent put in three thousand—­and the funny thing is,” Alix broke off to say, musingly, “Uncle Vincent was perfectly splendid about it; I myself remember him saying, ’Don’t worry, Lee.  I’m speculating on my own responsibility, not yours.’”