ose children to an hotel at
Fontainebleau, can we?" he questioned weakly. "You see, dear, there's
the mere expense of it--"

Her eyes were already travelling far ahead of him. "The expense won't
amount to much. I've just remembered that Angele, the bonne, has a
sister who is cook there in a nice old-fashioned pension which must be
almost empty at this time of year. I'm sure I can ma--arrange easily,"
she hurried on, nearly tripping again over the fatal word. "And just
think of the treat it will be to them! This is Friday, and I can get
them let off from their afternoon classes, and keep them in the country
till Monday. Poor darlings, they haven't been out of Paris for months!
And I daresay the change will cure Geordie's cough--Geordie's the
youngest," she explained, surprised to find herself, even in the rapture
of reunion, so absorbed in the welfare of the Fulmers.

She was conscious that her husband was surprised also; but instead of
prolonging the argument he simply questioned: "Was Geordie the chap you
had in your arms when you opened the front door the night before last?"

She echoed: "I opened the front door the night before last?"

"To a boy with a parcel."

"Oh," she sobbed, "you were there? You were watching?"

He held her to him, and the currents flowed between them warm and full
as on the night of their moon over Como.

In a trice, after that, she had the matter in hand and her forces
marshalled. The taxi was paid, Nick's luggage deposited in the
vestibule, and the children, just piling down to breakfast, were
summoned in to hear the news.

It was apparent that, seasoned to surprises as they were, Nick's
presence took them aback. But when, between laughter and embraces, his
identity, and his right to be where he was, had been made clear to them,
Junie dismissed the matter by asking him in her practical way: "Then
I suppose we may talk about you to Susy now?"--and thereafter all five
addressed themselves to the vision of their imminent holiday.

From that moment the little house became the centre of a whirlwind.
Treats so unforeseen, and of such magnitude, were rare in the young
Fulmers' experience, and had it not been for Junie's steadying influence
Susy's charges would have got out of hand. But young Nat, appealed to
by Nick on the ground of their common manhood, was induced to forego
celebrating the event on his motor horn (the very same which had
tortured the New Hampshire echoes), and to assert