With the little purring creature hugged close, Mary reviewed her worries—­the world was at sixes and sevens.  Even Porter was proving difficult.  Since the Sunday when Roger had saved her from the fire, Porter had adopted an air of possession.  He claimed her at all times and seasons; she had a sense of being caught in a web woven of kindness and thoughtfulness and tender care, but none the less a web which held her fast and against her will.

Whimsically it came to her that the four men in her life were opposed in groups of two:  Gordon and Porter stood arrayed on the side of logical preferences; Barry and Roger on the side of illogical sympathies.

Gordon had conveyed to her, in rather subtle fashion, his disapproval of Roger.  It was only in an occasional phrase, such as “Poor Poole,” or “if all of his story were known.”  But Mary had grasped that, from the standpoint of her brother-in-law, a man who had failed to fulfil the promise of his youth might be dismissed as a social derelict.

As for Barry—­the situation with regard to him had become acute.  His first disappearance after the coming of Constance had resulted in Gordon’s assuming the responsibility of the search for him.  He had found Barry in a little town on the upper Potomac, ostensibly on a fishing trip, and again there was a need for fighting dragons.

But Gordon did not fight with the same weapons as Roger Poole.  His arguments had been shrewd, keen, but unsympathetic.  And the result had been a strained relation between him and Barry.  The boy had felt himself misunderstood.  Gordon had sat in judgment.  Constance had tearfully agreed with Gordon, and Mary, torn between her sense of Gordon’s rightness, and her own championship of Barry, had been strung to the point of breaking.

She turned from the window, and went up-stairs slowly.  In the Sanctum, Constance and Aunt Isabelle were sewing.  At last Aunt Isabelle had come into her own.  She spent her days in putting fine stitches into infinitesimal garments.  There was about her constantly the perfume of the sachet powder with which she was scenting the fine lawn and lace which glorified certain baskets and bassinets.  When she was not sewing she was knitting—­little silken socks for a Cupid’s foot, little warm caps, doll’s size; puffy wool blankets on big wooden needles.

The Sanctum had taken on the aspect of a bower.  Here Constance sat enthroned—­and in her gentleness reminded Mary more and more of her mother.  Here was always the sweetness of the flowers with which Gordon kept his wife supplied; here, too, was an atmosphere of serene waiting for a supreme event.

Mary, entering with Pittiwitz in her arms, tried to cast away her worries on the threshold.  She must not be out of tune with this symphony.  She smiled and sat down beside Constance.  “Such lovely little things,” she said; “what can I do?”

It seemed that there was a debate on, relative to the suitability of embroidery as against fine tucks.