"Ah, me," she sighed. "Your father and mother was a pair of lovers if ever there was a pair. As long as I knew them, they never had a word—much less words. 'Pard' he called her. 'What shall we do to-day, Pard?' he would ask her of a morning. She would want him to be at his pictures 'On such a sunshiny morning!' he would say. And the next day, maybe, it would rain. 'You know I can't paint these dark days,' says he. And off they would go, on some harum-scarum or other, like a couple of children. Like a couple of children—and so they ever were, too. Do you mind my speaking of them?"
"I love it," Phyllis assured her. "I—you know I have had no one with whom I could talk about my mother and father. Uncle Peter—" She could not finish the sentence.
"Yes, yes, my deary dear, I know," said Mrs. Farquharson soothingly. "Your mother knew what he thought. Often and often she told me she wished she could find a way to make Sir Peter not think so hard of her. 'Oh, Farquharson,' says she, 'he thinks I snared Robert. If he only knew how hard I tried to refuse him.' She was wild for a stage career when first they met. It grieved her sorely that your uncle didn't know the rights of it; but, bless your heart, she couldn't bear the thought of any one, high or low, not being good friends with her. She was that tender-hearted, you wouldn't believe. But along with it as proud as—as—I can't think of his name—that makes the matches. You know, my dear."
Mrs. Farquharson mused over her memories
"Your father was her first love-affair," she resumed. "She was wrapped up in her acting till she met him. Her mother and father were both on the stage. Did you know that? Yes, my deary dear, she told me a costume-trunk was her cradle, and a dressing-room the only nursery that ever she knew. She hated to give it all up, but she did; your mother loved your father beyond all that ever I saw or heard of, and he worshiped the ground she walked on. Strong words, my dear, but true as true."
It was midnight before they knew it. The dark circles under her darling's eyes gave Mrs. Farquharson occasion for concern. Genevieve had visited the bedroom with clean linen in her arms.
"I will take a short walk," whispered John to Phyllis.
Poor Phyllis. She needed her old nurse; the excitement and fatigue had exhausted her completely.
Standing in the square, looking upward at the stars, a white-faced poet, his thoughts unutterable, at last saw the lights in her windows grow dim and disappear.
On the stairs he met Mrs. Farquharson. Her voice was anxious as she bade him good night.