She began again. Suddenly, just outside, a very passable tenor took up the air just where a tenor should. Jacqueline was startled but not nonplussed; she had been hoping a miracle might occur that day. At seventeen, the age of miracles has not passed. She finished her share of the duet with a flourish, and on the last note of his, Percival Channing appeared in the doorway. "Weren't we splendid together?" she greeted him. "Just like the Victrola. Let's do it again!" They did it again, and afterwards shook hands in mutual congratulation. "What you said was quite true--music without some one to share it is only half music," he remarked. "But whom did you say it to?" He looked about him curiously. "Oh, to my familiars!" She waved an airy hand. "This place is haunted, you know; but the ghosts run when they see a stranger.--You _do_ make unexpected appearances, Mr. Channing!" "Nothing compared with yours. The banister-rail, riding bareback 'out of the night,' as the romantics love to say--But unexpected? Come now, Miss Jacqueline--" he smiled quizzically--"surely you did expect me to inquire for your health?" She dimpled. "Yes--but not quite so soon." "You do yourself an injustice!" He added, with an air of formality, "I have come to make my dinner call. Is your mother at home?" "You know very well that she's away, because you heard Philip say so last night! There's Jemima, though." "Is your sister at home?" he asked politely. "She's making pickle this afternoon, and she's always rather cross when she makes pickle. But I'm sure she'll see you, if you wish." "I don't," said Channing. "I thought not," murmured Jacqueline, and made a place for him to sit down beside her. "Look out--you'll squash the baby!" Channing jumped. "A baby? Beg pardon, infant--" he poked a finger toward young Kitty, who promptly conveyed it to her mouth. "It's biting me," he said plaintively. "Call it off--What are you doing with a baby?" "I'm winning it away from its mother so that she'll let me keep it for good," said Jacqueline in confidence. "Humph! Rather a high-handed proceeding, that." "Oh, no--I don't think Mag really wants a baby much, not like I do. She's fond of it in a way, just as cats are fond of their kittens; but they soon outgrow it, you know. Why, once we had a cat who ate her kittens!" "Shocking of her," said Channing. "I suppose it was because she didn't want to have them--any more than Mag did. She never had a husband, you see, and that makes it so awkward." "Meaning the cat?" murmured Channing. The author of erotic novels was rather pink about the gills. He wondered how much of the girl's naïveté was natural and how much pose. On the whole, judging from her antecedents and environment, he decided that it was largely pose, but thought none the less of her for that. The artificial always interested him more than the natural.