"That distance may lend an enchantment to the obligations of kinship!" he said gayly.

Diana looked up, grave as a youthful Japanese goddess.

"You don't mean that, do you?"

"No, I don't," he said, reddening. "If I did, the janitor ought to throw me out."

Silvette nodded seriously.

"We know you said it in joke; but the only straw to float Diane's idea is our kinship, Mr. Edgerton. And we grasped at it—for your sake."

"Please cling to it for your own sakes," too, he said, also very serious now; "it may become a plank to float us all.... I realize the point you are straining out of kindness to me. If I accept shelter here for a day or two, I shall know very well what it costs you to offer it."

"It doesn't cost us anything," interrupted Diana hastily. "Silvette meant only that you should understand why our consciences and common sense sanction your remaining if we remain."

"You must remain anyway!" he said.

"So must you, cousin," said Silvette, laughing. "Anyway, you've probably sent your trunks here—haven't you?"

"By jinks! I forgot that!" he exclaimed. "I believe that racket on the stairs means that my trunks are arriving!"

It did mean exactly that. And when Edgerton went out to the landing he encountered two expressmen staggering under the luggage, and, behind them, the terrified janitor who had returned, and who, on the advent of the baggage, had hurried upstairs to summarily evict the illeg