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“Isn’t that great!” said Barbran in the voice of one giving three cheers for a funeral. “How does he want his music-room decorated?”

Young Phil put his head in his hands. “Scenes from Moody and Sankey,” he said in a muffled voice.

“Good gracious! You aren’t going to do it?”

“I am,” retorted the other gloomily. “It’s good money.” Almost immediately he added, “Damn the money!”

“No; no; you mustn’t do that. You must go, of course. Would–will it take long?”

“I’m not coming back.”

“I don’t want you not to come back,” said Barbran, in a queer, frightened voice. She put out her hand to him and hastily withdrew it.

He said desperately: “What’s the use? I can’t sit here forever looking at you and–and dreaming of–of impossible things, and eating my heart out with my nose painted green.”

“The poor nose!” murmured Barbran.

With one of her home-laundered handkerchiefs dipped in turpentine, she gently rubbed it clean. It then looked (as she said later in a feeble attempt to palliate her subsequent conduct) very pink and boyish and pathetic, but somehow faithful and reliable and altogether lovable.

So she kissed it. Then she tried to run away. The attempt failed.

It was not Barbran’s nose that got kissed next. Nor, for that matter, was it young Phil’s. Then he held her off and shut his eyes, for the untrammeled exercise of his reasoning powers, and again demanded of Barbran and the fates:

“What’s the use?”

“What’s the use of what?” returned Barbran tremulously.

“Of all this? Your father’s a millionaire, and I won’t–I can’t–“

“He isn’t!” cried Barbran. “And you can–you will.”

“He isn’t?” ejaculated Phil. “What is he?”

“He’s a school-teacher, and I haven’t got a thing but debts.”

Phil received this untoward news as if a flock of angels, ringing joy bells, had just brought him the gladdest tidings in history. After an interlude he said:

“But, why–“

“Because,” said Barbran, burrowing her nose in his coat: “I thought it would be an asset. I thought people would consider it romantic and it would help business. See how much that reporter made of it! Phil! Wh-wh-why are you treating me like a–a–a–dumbbell?”

For he had thrust her away from him at arm’s-length again.

“There’s one other thing between us, Barbran.”

“If there is, it’s your fault. What is it?”

“Harvey Wheelwright,” he said solemnly. “Do you really like that sickening slush-slinger?”

She raised to him eyes in which a righteous hate quivered. “I loathe him. I’ve always loathed him. I despise the very ink he writes with and the paper it’s printed on.”

When I happened in a few minutes later, they were ritually burning the “Dear Friend and Admirer” letter in a slow candle-flame, and Harvey Wheelwright, as represented by his unctuously rolling signature, was writhing in merited torment. Between them they told me their little romance.

“And he’s not going to Kansas City,” said Barbran defiantly.

“I’m not going anywhere, ever, away from Barbran,” said young Phil.

“And he’s going to paint what he wants to.”

“Pictures of Barbran,” said young Phil.

“And we’re going to burn the Wheel sign in effigy, and wipe off the walls and make the place a success,” said Barbran.

“And we’re going to be married right away,” said Phil.

“Next week,” said Barbran.

“What do you think?” said both.

Now I know what I ought to have said just as well as MacLachan himself. I should have pointed out the folly and recklessness of marrying on twenty-five dollars a week and a dowry of debts. I should have preached prudence and caution and delay, and have pointed out–The wind blew the door open: Young Spring was in the park, and the wet odor of little burgeoning leaves was borne in, wakening unwithered memories in my withered heart.

“Bless you, my children!” said I.

It was actually for this, as holding out encouragement to their reckless, feckless plans, that Wisdom, in the person of MacLachan, the tailor, reprehended me, rather than for my historical intentions regarding the pair.

“What’ll they be marryin’ on?” demanded Mac Wisdom–that is to say, MacLachan.

“Spring and youth,” I said. “The fragrance of lilac in the air, the glow of romance in their hearts. What better would you ask?”

“A bit of prudence,” said MacLachan.

“Prudence!” I retorted scornfully. “The miser of the virtues. It may pay its own way through the world. But when did it ever take Happiness along for a jaunt?”

I was quite pleased with my little epigram until the Scot countered upon me with his observation about two young fools and an old one.

Oh, well! Likely enough. Most unwise, and rash and inexcusable, that headlong mating; and there will be a reckoning to pay. Babies, probably, and new needs and pressing anxieties, and Love will perhaps flutter at the window when Want shows his grim face at the door; and Wisdom will be justified of his forebodings, and yet–and yet–who am I, old and lonely and uncompanioned, yet once touched with the spheral music and the sacred fire, that I should subscribe to the dour orthodoxies of MacLachan and that ilk?

Years and years ago a bird flew in at my window, a bird of wonderful and flashing hues, and of lilting melodies. It came; it tarried–and I let the chill voice of Prudence overbear its music. It left me. But the song endures; the song endures, and all life has been the richer for its echoes. So let them hold and cherish their happiness, the two young fools.

As for the old one, would that some good fairy, possessed of the pigment and secret of perishable youth, might come down and paint his nose green!