Old Rose and Silver Part 23

"All right. Good-night, and thank you ever so much."

The sound of the key in the lock had wakened Rose from her uneasy sleep.

She heard their laughter, though she could not distinguish what they said, and recognised a new tone in Allison's voice. She heard the door close, the carriage roll away, and, after a little, Isabel's hushed footsteps on the stairs. Then another door closed softly and a light glimmered afar into the garden until the shade was drawn.

Wide-eyed and fearful, she slept no more, for the br.i.m.m.i.n.g Cup of Joy, that had seemed within her reach, was surely beyond it now. Oppressed with loss and pain, her heart beat slowly, as though it were weary of living. Until daybreak she wondered if he, too, was keeping the night watch, from a wholly different point of view.

But, man-like, Allison had long ago gone to sleep, in the big Colonial house beyond the turn in the road, idly humming to himself:

Come and kiss me, Sweet-and-Twenty; Youth's a stuff will not endure!

XI

KEEPING THE FAITH

Colonel Kent and Allison critically surveyed the table, where covers were laid for seven. "Someway it lacks the 'grand air' of Madame Bernard's," commented the Colonel, "yet I can't see anything wrong, can you?"

"Not a thing," Allison returned. "The 'grand air' you allude to comes, I think, from Aunt Francesca herself. When she takes her place opposite you, I'm sure we shall compare very favourably with our neighbours."

The Crosby twins arrived first, having chartered the station hack for the evening. As the minds of both were above such minor details as clothes, their attire was of the nondescript variety, but their exuberant youth and high spirits gallantly concealed all defects and the tact of their hosts quickly set them both at their ease.

Romeo somewhat ostentatiously left their card upon the mantel, so placed that all who came near might read in fashionable script: "The Crosby Twins." Having made this concession to the conventionalities, he lapsed at once into an agreeable informality that amused the Colonel very much.

Soon the Colonel was describing some of the great battles in which he had taken part, and Romeo listened with an eager interest which was all the more flattering because it was so evidently sincere. In the library, meanwhile, Allison was renewing his old acquaintance with Juliet.

"You used to be a perfect little devil," he smiled.

"I am yet," Juliet admitted, with a frank laugh. "At least people say so. Romie and I aren't popular with our neighbours."

"That doesn't speak well for the neighbours. Were they never young themselves?"

"I don't believe so. I've thought, sometimes, that lots of people were born grown-up."

"They say abroad, that there are no children in America--that they are merely little people treated like grown-ups."

"The modern American child is a horror," said Juliet, unconsciously quoting from an article in a recent magazine. "They're ill bred and they don't mind, and there's n.o.body who wants to make 'em mind except people who have no authority to do it."

"Why is it?" inquired Allison, secretly amused.

"Because spanking has gone out of fashion," she answered, in all seriousness. "It takes so much longer for moral suasion to work. Romie and I never had any 'moral suasion,'--we were brought up right."

Juliet's tone indicated a deep filial respect for her departed parents and there was a faraway look in her blue eyes which filled Allison with tender pity.

"You must be lonely sometimes," he said, kindly.

"Lonely?" repeated Juliet in astonishment; "why, how could I ever be lonely with Romie?"

"Of course you couldn't be lonely when he was there, but you must miss him when he's away from you."

"He's never away," she answered, with a toss of her curly head. "We're most always together, unless he goes to town--or up to your house," she added, as an afterthought.

Allison was about to say that Romeo had never been there before, but wisely kept silent.

"Twins are the most related of anybody," Juliet went on. "An older brother or sister may get ahead of you and be so different that you never catch up, but twins have to trot right along together. It's just the difference between tandem and double harness."

"Suppose Romeo should marry?" queried Allison, carelessly.

"I'd die," replied Juliet, firmly, her cheeks burning as with flame.

"Or suppose you married?"

"Then Romie would die," she answered, with conviction. "We've both promised not to get married and we always keep our promises to each other."

"And to other people, too?"

"Not always. Sometimes it's necessary to break a promise, or to lie, but never to each other. If Romie asks me anything I don't want to tell him, I just say 'King's X,' and if I ask him anything, he says 'it's none of your business,' and it's all right. Twins have to be square with each other."

"Don't you ever quarrel?"

"We may differ, and of course we have fought sometimes, but it doesn't last long. We can always arbitrate. Say, do you know Isabel Ross?"

"I have that pleasure. She's coming to dinner to-night, with Aunt Francesca and Miss Rose."

"Oh," said Juliet, in astonishment. "If I'd known that, I'd have dressed up more. I thought it was just us."

"It is 'just us,'" he a.s.sured her, kindly; "a very small and select party composed of our most charming neighbours, and believe me, my dear Miss Juliet, that n.o.body could possibly be 'dressed up more.'"

Juliet bloomed with pleasure and her eyes sparkled. "Isabel came out to see us," she continued, "and I don't think she had a good time. We showed her all our fishing rods, and let her help us make fudges, and we did stunts for her on the trapeze in the attic, and Romie told her she could have any one of our dogs, but she said she didn't want it, and she wouldn't stay to supper. I guess she thought I couldn't cook just because she can't. Romie said if I'd make another chocolate cake like the one I made the day after she was there, he'd take it up to her and show her whether I could cook or not."

"I believe he would," returned Allison, with a trace of sarcasm which Juliet entirely missed. Then he laughed at the vision of Romeo bearing the proof of his twin's culinary skill into Madame Bernard's living room.

"You come out and see us," urged Juliet, hospitably.

"I will, indeed. May I have a dog?"

"They're Romie's and I can't give 'em away, but I guess he could spare you one. Would you rather have a puppy or a full-grown dog?"

"I'd have to see 'em first," he replied, tactfully steering away from the danger of a choice. He had not felt the need of a dog and was merely trying to be pleasant.

"There's plenty to see," she went on, with a winning smile. "I like dogs myself but we fought once because I thought we had too many. We've named 'em all out of an old book we found in the attic. There's Achilles, and Hector, and Persephone, and Minerva, and Circe and Juno, and Priam, and Eurydice, and goodness knows how many more. Romie knows all their names, but I don't."

Hearing the sound of wheels outside, Colonel Kent, with a certain old- fashioned hospitality to which our generation might happily return, went to open the door himself for his expected guests. Juliet went hastily to the mirror to make sure that her turbulent curls were in order, and Romeo intercepted Allison on his way to the door.

"I heard what she said," Romeo remarked, in a low tone, "about my having been up here, but I didn't tell her I was here. I don't lie to Jule, but I'm responsible only for what I say, not for what she thinks."