stood before the
huge gilt cage with Brigit shortly after her appearance downstairs that
morning. "It is a severe test that everyone who comes here has to
undergo. He is writing his memoirs, too."

"It will be a sad day for you, papa, when his memoirs appear," put in
Theo, who was smoking a pipe and walking up and down the room just
because he was much too happy to sit still. "You have yet to see the
_real_ Victor Joyselle, Brigit. This polite being is the one we keep for
company."

Brigit laughed. "Is it true?" she asked the violinist.

"Yes," he returned unexpectedly, "you see now the happy Joyselle; the
Joyselle _pere de famille_, domestic; the artist Joyselle, alas! is an
irritable, nervous, unpleasant person, who forgets to eat, and then
abuses his wife for giving him no dinner; an absent-minded idiot who
leaves his own old coat at the club and goes off wrapped in the Marquis
of St. Ive's sables; a swearing, smoking, wild-headed person, who
adores, nevertheless, his little Theo, and that little Theo's beautiful
_fiancee_."

At the end of this long speech his face, which had in the middle of it
been sombre with a sense of his own iniquity, suddenly cleared, until a
radiant smile transfigured it.

"My little brother adores you, M. Joyselle," said Brigit suddenly; "he
will be _so_ pleased. He calls your hair a halo!"

"A sad sinner's halo, then. The beautiful saints have others. And your
little brother, what is his name? And how old is he?"

"Tommy is his name, and he is twelve. He is music-mad, and such a dear!
Isn't he, Theo?"

Brigit had never been so happy. It was all like a dream, these
warm-hearted, simple-minded people, the father and mother so ready to
love her for the son's sake, the mental atmosphere so different from
that to which she was accustomed. She felt younger and, somehow, better
than ever before. And Theo would be very helpful to Tommy, and Tommy's
joy, in hearing Joyselle play, something very beautiful. She had sent a
wire to her mother the night before at the station, but her mother would
not answer it, and there were at least several hours between her and the
moment when she must leave Golden Square. The very name was beautiful!

It was raining hard, and the blurred windows seemed a kind of magic
barrier between her and the tiresome old world outside.

Then there came a ring at the door, and a moment later Toinon, the
red-elbowed maid-of-all-work, appeared, very much alarmed, carryin