te. Sugar-plums are good, but, like all palatable things,
unwholesome. So I shall prescribe Rudolph's company for myself, to ward
off an attack of moral indigestion. I am very glad he has come
back--really glad," she added, conscientiously. "Poor old Rudolph! what
between his interminable antiquities and those demented sections of the
alphabet--What are those things, _mon ami_, that are always going up and
down in Wall Street?"

"Elevators?" Mr. Charteris suggested.

"Oh, you jay-bird! I mean those N.P.'s and N.Y.C.'s and those other
letters that are always having flurries and panics and passed dividends.
They keep him incredibly busy."

And she sighed, tolerantly. Patricia had come within the last two weeks
to believe that she was neglected, if not positively ill-treated, by her
husband; and she had no earthly objection to Mr. Charteris thinking
likewise. Her face expressed patient resignation now, as they walked
under the close-matted foliage of the beech-trees, which made a
pleasant, sun-flecked gloom about them.

Patricia removed her hat--the morning really was rather close--and
paused where a sunbeam fell upon her copper-colored hair, and glorified
her wistful countenance. She sighed once more, and added a finishing
touch to the portrait of a _femme incomprise_.

"Pray, don't think, _mon ami_," she said very earnestly, "that I am
blaming Rudolph! I suppose no wife can ever hope to have any part in her
husband's inner life."

"Not in her own husband's, of course," said Charteris, cryptically.

"No, for while a woman gives her heart all at once, men crumble theirs
away, as one feeds bread to birds--a crumb to this woman, a crumb to
that--and such a little crumb, sometimes! And his wife gets what is left
over."

"Pray, where did you read that?" said Charteris.

"I didn't read it anywhere. It was simply a thought that came to me,"
Patricia lied, gently. "But don't let's try to be clever. Cleverness is
always a tax, but before luncheon it is an extortion. Personally, it
makes me feel as if I had attended a welsh-rabbit supper the night
before. Your wife must be very patient."

"My wife," cried Charteris, in turn resolved to screen an unappreciative
mate, "is the most dear and most kind-hearted among the Philistines. And
yet, at times, I grant you--"

"Oh, but, of course!" Patricia said impatiently. "I don't for a moment
question that your wife is an angel."

"And why?" His eyebrows lifted, and he smiled.