At length Doctor Jack interposed a friendly word of warning.  “Look here, kid,” he said, “you’re made of flesh and blood, you know, just like the rest of us.  Better cut out that trapeze business.”

“I don’t know why,” returned Juliet, resentfully, as she slipped gracefully to the floor, right side up.  “I’m as strong as Romie is, or almost as strong.”

“Girls do it in the circus,” Romeo observed, wiping his flushed face.

“Ever heard of any of ’em living to celebrate their hundredth birthday?” queried Doctor Jack, significantly.

The twins admitted that they had not.  “I don’t care,” cried Juliet, “I’d rather live ten years and keep going, than live to be a hundred and have to sit still all the time.”

“No danger of your sitting still too long,” returned Doctor Jack, good-humouredly.  “It’s hot up here, isn’t it?”

“Rather warm,” Romeo agreed.  “You folks can go downstairs until we get on our other clothes, if you like.”

They had reached the head of the stairs when Isabel changed her mind.  “I believe I’ll wait for Juliet,” she said, turning back.

So the Doctor went down alone, inwardly reviling himself for his unlucky speech, and glad of an opportunity to contemplate the characteristic residence of the twins.

The whole house was, frankly, a place where people did as they chose, and the furniture bore marks of having been used not wisely, but too well.  Everything was clean, though not aggressively so.  He ascribed the absence of lace curtains to Romeo and the Cloisonne vase to Juliet.  The fishing rods in one corner were probably due to both.

When the others came down, Juliet tied a big blue gingham apron over her white muslin gown and excused herself.  She had been cooking for the better part of two days and took a housewifely pride in doing everything herself.  They had chosen the things they liked the most, so the dinner was unusual, as dinners go.

Isabel, eating daintily, made no effort to conceal her disdain, but Doctor Jack ate heartily, praised everything, and brought the blush of pleasure to Juliet’s rosy cheeks.

Romeo, at the head of the table, radiated the hospitality of the true host, yet a close observer would have noted how often he cast admiring glances at Isabel.  She was so dainty, so beautifully gowned and elaborately coiffured, that Romeo compared her with his sister greatly to the disadvantage of the latter.

Juliet’s hair was unruly and broke into curls all around her face; Isabel’s was in perfect order, with every wave mathematically exact.  Juliet’s face was tanned and rosy; Isabel’s pale and cool.  Juliet’s hands were rough and her finger-tips square; Isabel’s were white and tapering, with perfectly manicured nails.  And their gowns—­there was no possible comparison there.  Both were in white, but Romeo discovered that there might be a vast difference in white gowns.