"I wonder," he said, "if either of you would pour for me at my grand tea to-morrow."
Kathleen did not look up, but her cheeks grew warmer while she manipulated the moss.
"Oh, a tea in the chicken-house," laughed Mrs. Fabian.
The light jeering tone struck Kathleen as coming at a particularly unfortunate moment.
"Whom are you going to invite? The fish?" laughed Mrs. Fabian.
Phil's naïveté was dashed by her tone. Kathleen felt it.
"Mother's jealous, Phil," she said, "because she has seen so little of you all the week. She is at fever heat of curiosity as to what you have been doing; and as for tea! Mother's an inebriate. She won't leave any for the fish. You'll see."
Phil looked at the speaker gratefully, and leaned toward her a little. "I have the right barrel at last," he said. "The one that ran away to the island. Do you remember?"
His eyes were so very speaking that Kathleen dropped hers to the moss. She nodded and smiled.
"It knew where it ought to go, didn't it?" she returned.
Mrs. Fabian's countenance had sobered. She knew the descendant of the Van Ruyslers so well that she understood that she had offended.
"Can't one make a bit of fun once in a while?" she asked in injured tones of Kathleen when next they were alone.
"Yes, once in a while," answered the girl, and kissed her.
"It'll be something funny for you to look back upon when you come out, Kathleen, that your first function after graduating took place in a chicken-house."
"I hope I shall not be homesick for it," thought the girl; but she only smiled.
"Kathleen is certainly touchy about Phil," mused Mrs. Fabian. "She glared up at me just the way she did last fall when I wanted to get Aunt Mary's silver. She is the queerest girl!"
The moon or something else did hold the weather and the artist could have had no better day on which to give his proof that where there's a will there's a way.
The company swarmed through the little house, laughing, admiring, questioning. At last they stood on the terrace.
"My dear boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Wright. "You could have no better view if you were a millionaire!"
"The only thing lacking," cried Violet, "is a white peacock. Where is the white peacock?"
"How about it, Edgar?" asked Phil. "Couldn't you stand out there for the lady?"