So John Cleland rose, glass in hand, his hair and moustache very white against the ruddy skin. "Steve, dear, you and Jim have never brought me anything but happiness—anything but honour to my name and to my roof. We welcome you home, dear, to your own place among your own people: Jim—we have the honour—our little Stephanie! Welcome home!" The young fellow rose, smiling, and bowed gaily to Stephanie. "Welcome home," he said, "dearest of sisters and most engaging insurgent of your restless sex!" That night Stephanie seemed possessed of a gay demon of demonstrative mischief. She conversed with Jim so seriously about his authorship that at first he did not realize that he was an object of sarcastic and delighted malice. When he did comprehend that she was secretly laughing at him, he turned so red with surprise and indignation that his father and Stephanie gave way to helpless laughter. Seated there on the sofa, across the room, tense, smiling, triumphantly and delightfully dangerous, she blew an airy kiss at Jim: "_That_ will teach you to poke fun at me," she said. "You’re no longer an object of fear and veneration just because you’re writing a book!" The young fellow laughed. "I _am_ easy," he admitted. "All authors are without honour in their own families. But wouldn’t it surprise you, Steve, if the world took my book respectfully?" "Not at all. That’s one of the reasons _I_ don’t. The opinion of ordinary people does not concern me," she said with gay impudence, "and if your book is a best seller it ought to worry you, Jim." "You don’t think," he demanded sadly, "that there’s anything in me?" "Oh, Jim!"—swiftly remorseful—"I was joking, of course." And, seeing by his grin that he was, too, turned up her nose, regretting too late her hasty and warm-hearted remorse. "How _common_, this fishing for praise and sympathy!" she remarked disdainfully. "Dad, does he bother you to death trying to read his immortal lines to you at inopportune moments?" Cleland Senior, in his arm-chair, white-haired, deeply ruddy, had been laughing during the bantering passage at arms between the two he loved best on earth. He seemed the ideal personification of hale and wholesome age, sound as a bell, very handsome, save that the flush on his face seemed rather heavier and deeper than the usual healthy colour. "Dad," exclaimed the girl, impulsively, "you certainly are the best-looking thing in all New York! I don’t think I shall permit you to go walking alone all by yourself any more. Do you hear me?" She sprang up lightly, went over and seated herself on the arm of his chair, murmuring close to his face gay little jests, odd, quaint endearments, all sorts of nonsense while she smoothed his hair to her satisfaction, re-tied his evening tie, patted his lapels, and finally kissed him lightly between his eyebrows, continuing her murmured nonsense all the while: