ed damask, with his mother's
egg-shell china, and certain spoons and forks that bore upon their
attenuated tips the worn outlines of a crest. The table was drawn into a
window, through which the scent of Philip's little garden floated in.
There were flowers upon the table, too; garden roses in a low pewter
bowl, and wax tapers in very beautiful bronze candelabra, at sight of
which Farwell's eyes widened enviously.

The actor, an aesthete to his finger-tips, looked with satisfaction about
the long, low room, wainscoted in vari-colored books, its great
old-fashioned fireplace filled with fragrant pine-boughs, and overhung
by a portrait in an oval frame of a dim gentleman in a stock; the mantel
crowded with pipes, a punching-bag and dumb-bells in one end of the
room, in the other an old square piano, open and inviting, showing
evidence of constant use; shabby, comfortable chairs; a large desk with
many pigeon-holes, very neat and business-like. Indeed, the whole room,
despite its odd agglomeration of furnishings, was neat, meticulously
neat, even to the spotless curtains, darned in many places by Jemima and
the ladies of the Altar Guild.

Farwell spoke his thought aloud, "There's more character in this room of
yours, Benoix, than in all that fine, self-conscious, art-y house of
mine," he declared. "It could give pointers to any studio I know. It's
the real thing!"

Philip flushed with surprise and pleasure. His unpretentious household
gods were very dear to him, dear as they are sometimes to women. They
meant more than furniture to the lonely young man; they meant home, and
kindred, and all the gentler things that life had denied him.

Channing became lyrical over the salad, and was moved to propose a
toast. He lifted his glass of beer--the best Philip's cellar afforded.
"Here's to the greatest nation on earth, one drop of whose blood is
worth more to Art than all the stolid corpuscles that clog the veins of
lesser races. Without it what man can hope to write great prose, or
paint great pictures, or mix a great salad? _Vive la France!_--Benoix,
who taught you how to cook?"

"My father," said Philip, in a low voice. He had not often occasion to
speak of his father, except to Mrs. Kildare.

"I knew it! There's nothing Anglo-Saxon or negroid about this cooking.
Again I say, _Vive la France!_"

After they had gone, Philip did not go immediately to bed. He was too
excited--as excited, he thought, smiling, as little Jemi