But, Mother," she added, with a faintly reproachful and whining
intonation, "really, you ought to be there--"

Mrs. Carter knew this as well as Nina. But she found the child
extremely trying in this puritanical mood. Granting that this
affair with Tony did her, Isabelle, small credit, at least it was
not for Nina to sit in judgment. Rebellious, Isabelle fondled the
loving nose of the hound with a small, brown, jewelled hand, and
glanced dubiously at Tony's uncompromising back.

"Trot back, Nina love," said she to her daughter, cheerfully, "and
ask Miss Harriet to come out and pour. I'll be there directly.
We'll come right up. Run along!"

To Nina, in this ignominious dismissal, there was sweet. She
adored "Miss Harriet," the Miss Field who had been her governess
and her mother's secretary for the three happiest years of Nina's
somewhat sealed young life. It would be "fun" to have Miss Field
pour. Nina leaped obediently up the steps, with a flopping of
thick braids and the scrape of sturdy shoes, and the sweet summer
world was in silence again.

Isabelle sat on, stroking the hound, her soul filled with
perplexity. The shadows were lengthening, the shafts of sunlight
more bold and clear. The hound, surprised at the silence, whined
faintly.

"I wish it might have been Nina!" Isabelle said. Anthony's
eloquent back gave her sudden understanding of his fury. She got
up, and went noiselessly toward him, and she felt a shudder shake