“I can’t tell you how surprised I am at Anne,” Peter said.

“Well, we all were!” Alix confessed.  “But it’s just Anne’s odd little self-centred way,” she added.  “It was here, and she wanted it.  She belongs heart and soul to the Little family now, and she is quite triumphant over being of so much help to Justin.  They’re to build a house in Berkeley.  Anne has it all worked out!” Alix said, with amused distaste.  “Well—­I let Hong go, and as soon as I can rent this house, I’m going to New York.”

“Why New York, my dear girl?”

“Because I believe I can make a living there, singing and teaching and generally struggling with life!” she answered, cheerfully.  “Cherry gets most of the money—­they are always somewhat in debt, and I imagine that the reason she is able to have a nice apartment and a maid now is because she knows it is coming—­and I get the house, and enough money to keep me going—­say, a year, in New York.”

“Do you want to go, Alix?” he said, affectionately.

“Yes, I think I do,” she answered.  But her eyes watered.  “I do—­in a way,” she added.  “That is, I love my singing, and the thought of making a success is delightful to me.  But of course it means that I give up everything else.  I can’t have home life, and—­and the valley—­for years, four or five anyway, I’ll have to give all that up.  And I’m twenty-seven, Peter.  And I’d always rather hoped that my music was going to be a domestic variety—­“She stopped, smiling, but he saw the pain in her eyes.  “George Sewall most kindly asked me to mother his small son—­” she resumed, casually.  “But although he is the dearest—­”

“Sewall did!” Peter exclaimed, rather struck.  “Great Scott! his father is one of the richest men in San Francisco.”

“I know it,” Alix agreed.  “And he is one of the nicest men,” she added.  “But of course he’ll never really love any one but Ursula.  And I felt—­oh, I felt too tired and alone and depressed to enter upon congratulations and clothes and family dinners with the Sewalls,” she ended, a little drearily.  “I wanted—­I wanted things in the old way—­as they were—­” she said, her voice thickening.

“I know—­I know!” Peter said, sympathetically.  And for a while there was silence in the little house, while the rain fell steadily upon the dark forest without, and soaked branches swished about eaves and windows.  “Can you put me up to-night?” he asked, suddenly.  He liked her frank pleasure.

“Rather!  I think Cherry’s room was made up fresh last Monday,” she told him.  “And to-morrow,” she added, with a brightening face, “we’ll walk up to your house, and see what six months of Kow’s uninterrupted sway have done to it!”

“That’s just what we’ll do!” he agreed, enthusiastically.  “And we’ll have some music—­”

She had risen, as if for good-nights, and was now beside the old square piano, where she had placed the lamp.

“I haven’t touched it—­since—­” she said, sadly, sitting on the stool, and with her eyes still smiling on him, putting back the hinged cover.  And a moment later her hands, with the assurance and ease of the adept, drifted into one of the songs of the old days.