n. "What?"

Bristling with a grave sort of astonishment he reached up nervously
and stroked his daughter's hair. "Your mother," he winced. "Your
mother was--to me--the most beautiful woman that ever lived! Such
expression!" he glowed. "Such fire! But of such a spiritual modesty!
Of such a physical delicacy! Like a rose," he mused, "like a
rose--that should refuse to bloom for any but the hand that gathered
it."

Languorously from some good practical pocket little Eve Edgarton
extracted a much be-frilled chocolate bonbon and sat there munching it
with extreme thoughtfulness. Then, "Father," she whispered, "I wish I
was like--Mother."

"Why?" asked Edgarton, wincing.

"Because Mother's--dead," she answered simply.

Noisily, like an over conscious throat, the tiny traveling-clock on
the mantelpiece began to swallow its moments. One moment--two
moments--three--four--five--six moments--seven moments--on, on, on,
gutturally, laboriously--thirteen--fourteen--fifteen--even twenty;
with the girl still nibbling at her chocolate, and the man still
staring off into space with that strange little whimper of pain
between his pale, shrewd eyes.

It was the man who broke the silence first. Precipitately he shifted
his knees and jostled his daughter to her feet.

"Eve," he said, "you're awfully spleeny to-night! I'm going to bed."
And he stalked off into his own room, slamming the door behind him.

Once again from the middle of the floor little Eve Edgarton stood
staring blankly after her father. Then she dawdled across the room and
opened his door just wide enough to compass the corners of her mouth.

"Father," she whispered, "did Mother know that she was a rose--before
you were clever enough to find her?"

"N--o," faltered her father's husky voice. "That was the miracle of
it. She never even dreamed--that she was a rose--until I found her."

Very quietly little Eve Edgarton shut the door again and came back
into the middle of her room and stood there hesitatingly for an
instant.

Then quite abruptly she crossed to her bureau and pushing aside the
old ivory toilet articles, began to jerk her tously hair first one way
and then another across her worried forehead.

"But if you knew you were a rose?" she mused perplexedly to herself.
"That is--if you felt almost sure that you were," she added with
sudden humility. "That is--" she corrected herself--"that is--if you
felt almost sure that you could be a rose--if anybody wan