“Elise is all right under one influence; but she can’t stand two. What you’ve got to see to, John, is that the influence is yours.” “Do you really mean, Sir,” asked John, trembling for the first time in his life, with excitement and felicity, “that you give your consent to our marriage?” Mr. Brett held out his hand unsmilingly, but with great heartiness. “I’ll back you, John, with the last ounce I’ve got,” he said quietly. “Cut along now and get that cold tea.” “I can’t thank you,” John exclaimed. “It’s too jolly fine of you.” Then he hurried off to Elise. Mr. Brett looked after his solid figure with a curious solemnity. “All that talk of mine,” he said to himself, “has been so much cotton batting. John only took out of it what he wanted. “I bought my wisdom dear, but wisdom’s a mighty cheap goods second hand and it don’t hardly seem to pay for its keep.” CHAPTER III Elise sat in the big dark drawing-room with the tea things before her. She knew that it was half an hour after John’s usual time, but there was nothing expectant in her attitude. She was doing embroidery. As she bent her head over her work, the sun caught her light gold hair and made a glory of it. She was finishing the wing of a bee drawing honey from a larkspur. The design was her own and when it was finished she was going to give it to Hermione. Sometimes Elise thought she ought to do war work, but on the whole she believed that making Papa comfortable was war work. Papa invented wonderful things for the Allies, and he had diabetes. The diet system of a famous Viennese doctor had saved Mr. Brett’s life and might indefinitely prolong it. But a good deal depended on his keeping still and having his mind at rest. Elise knew that one of the things which rested Mr. Brett’s mind most was seeing her at Mambles, and watching her come in and out of the long French windows to see if there were anything he wanted. Hermione had pointed out to Elise that she was wasting her life, and Elise had felt rather upset, but she had gone on wasting it. From the age of fifteen Hermione had sat on piazzas black with young men. When she took a country excursion young men followed her as a string of ducks follow their leader across a field. When she was in town, she drew the young men away from other girls with the faultless placidity of a magnet. Elise might not have achieved so long a line of ducks, or such responsive needles, but she could certainly draw young men. Hermione told her that she ought to go to America and draw them. She would literally have New York, or if she preferred it, Washington, at her feet. Elise had listened quietly to these dazzling pictures. It was difficult to tell Hermione without appearing unpatriotic that she did not want New York, or even Washington, at her feet. So she said a little vaguely that Europe was very interesting just now. Hermione skimmed the vagueness off the top of Elise’s mind.