d, and produced a pocket-handkerchief. "I--oh, what
do you mean by making me so unhappy?" she demanded, indignantly.

"Ah, Patricia," he murmured, as he knelt beside her, "how can you hope
to have a man ever talk to you in a sane fashion? You shouldn't have
such eyes, Patricia! They are purple and fathomless like the ocean, and
when a man looks into them too long his sanity grows weak, and sinks
and drowns in their cool depths, and the man must babble out his foolish
heart to you. Oh, but indeed, you shouldn't have such eyes, Patricia!
They are dangerous, and to ask anybody to believe in their splendor is
an insult to his intelligence, and besides, they are much too bright to
wear in the morning. They are bad form, Patricia."

"We must be sensible," she babbled. "Your wife is here; my husband is
here. And we--we aren't children or madmen, Jack dear. So we really must
be sensible, I suppose. Oh, Jack," she cried, upon a sudden; "this isn't
honorable!"

"Why, no! Poor little Anne!"

Mr. Charteris's eyes grew tender for a moment, because his wife, in a
fashion, was dear to him. Then he laughed, very musically.

"And how can a man remember honor, Patricia, when the choice lies
between honor and you? You shouldn't have such hair, Patricia! It is a
net spun out of the raw stuff of fire and blood and of portentous
sunsets; and its tendrils have curled around what little honor I ever
boasted, and they hold it fast, Patricia. It is dishonorable to love
you, but I cannot think of that when I am with you and hear you speak.
And when I am not with you, just to remember that dear voice is enough
to set my pulses beating faster. Oh, Patricia, you shouldn't have such a
voice!"

Charteris broke off in speech. "'Scuse me for interruptin'," the old
mulattress Virginia was saying, "but Mis' Pilkins sen' me say lunch
raydy, Miss Patrisy."

Virginia seemed to notice nothing out-of-the-way. Having delivered her
message, she went away quietly, her pleasant yellow face as
imperturbable as an idol's. But Patricia shivered.

"She frightens me, _mon ami_. Yes, that old woman always gives me
gooseflesh, and I don't know why--because she is as deaf as a post--and
I simply can't get rid of her. She is a sort of symbol--she, and how
many others, I wonder!... Oh, well, let's hurry."

So Mr. Charteris was never permitted to finish his complaint against
Patricia's voice.

It was absolutely imperative they should be on time for luncheon; for,