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When one whole side of the table was finished, and she turned a second corner, her father brushed her soft cheek with his lips.

“Did your dolls like the merry-go-round?” he asked kindly.

“Yes, fath—er.”

“Was there something else my little girl wanted?”

Now she raised herself so far on her toes that her lips were close to his ear. For there was a lady on either side of him. And both were plainly listening.

“If—if you’d come up and make it go,” she said, almost whispering.

He nodded energetically.

She went behind his chair. Thomas was in wait there still. Down here he seemed to raise a wall of aloofness between himself and her, to wear a magnificent air, all cold and haughty, that was quite foreign to the nursery. As she passed him, she dimpled up at him saucily. But it failed to slack the starchy tenseness of his visage.

She turned another corner and curtsied her way along the opposite side of the table. On this side were precisely as many high-backed chairs as on the other. And now, “You adorable child!” cried the ladies, and “Haw! Haw! Don’t the rest of us get a smile?” said the men.

When all the curtseying was over, and the last corner was turned, she paused. “And what is my daughter going to say about the rabbit in the cabbage?” asked her mother.

There was a man seated on either hand. Gwendolyn gave each a quick glance. At Johnnie Blake’s she had been often alone with her father and mother during that one glorious week. But in town her little confidences, for the most part, had to be made in just this way—under the eye of listening guests and servants, in a low voice.

“I like the rabbit,” she answered, “but my Puffy Bear was nicer, only he got old and shabby, and so—”

At this point Jane took one quick step forward.

“But if you’d come up to the nursery soon,” Gwendolyn hastened to add. “Would you, moth—er?”

“Yes, indeed, dear.”

Gwendolyn went up to Jane, who was waiting, rooted and rigid, close by. The reddish eyes of the nurse-maid fairly bulged with importance. Her lips were sealed primly. Her face was so pale that every freckle she had stood forth clearly. How strangely—even direly—the great dining-room affected her—who was so at ease in the nursery! No smile, no wink, no remark, either lively or sensible, ever melted the ice of her countenance. And it was with a look almost akin to pity that Gwendolyn held out a hand.

Jane took it with a great show of affection. Then once more Potter swung wide the double doors.

Gwendolyn turned her head for a last glimpse of her father, sitting, grave and haggard, at the far end of the table; at her beautiful, jeweled mother; at the double line of high-backed chairs that showed, now a man’s stern black-and-white, next the gayer colors of a woman’s dress; at the clustered lights; the glitter; the roses—

Then the doors closed, making faint the din of chatter and laughter. And the bronze cage carried Gwendolyn up and up.

CHAPTER III

There was a high wind blowing, and the newly washed garments hanging on the roofs of nearby buildings were writhing and twisting violently, and tugging at the long swagging clothes-lines. Gwendolyn, watching from the side window of the nursery, pretended that the garments were so many tortured creatures, vainly struggling to be free. And she wished that two or three of the whitest and prettiest might loose their hold and go flying away—across the crescent of the Drive and the wide river—to liberty and happiness in the forest beyond.

Among the flapping lines walked maids—fully a score of them. Some were taking down wash that was dry and stuffing it into baskets. Others were busy hanging up limp pieces, first giving them a vigorous shake; then putting a small portion of each over the line and pinching all securely into place with huge wooden pins.

It seemed cruel.

Yet the faces of the maids were kind—kinder than the faces of Miss Royle and Jane and Thomas. Behind Gwendolyn the heavy brocade curtains hung touching. She parted them to make sure that she was alone in the nursery. After which she raised the window—just a trifle. The roofs that were white with laundry were not those directly across from the nursery, but over-looked the next street. Nevertheless, with the window up, Gwendolyn could hear the crack and snap of the whipping garments, and an indistinct chorus of cheery voices. One maid was singing a lilting tune. The rest were chattering back and forth. With all her heart Gwendolyn envied them—envied their freedom, and the fact that they were indisputably grown-up. And she decided that, later on, when she was as big and strong, she would be a laundry-maid and run about on just such level roofs, joyously hanging up wash.