if you promise to write the book here. There's a
balcony room that overlooks the river--and nobody would ever interrupt
you but me, and I'd only come when you wanted me."

Marie-Louise's breath was short as she finished. To cover her emotion she
caught up the wreath which she had made in the morning, and which lay
beside her.

"I made it for you," she told Geoffrey, "and now that I've done it, I
don't know what to do with it."

She was blushing and glowing, less of an imp and more of a girl than
Richard had ever seen her.

Geoffrey rose to the occasion. "It shall be a mascot for my new book.
I'll hang it on the wall over my desk, and every time I look up at it, it
shall say to me, 'These are the laurels you are to win.'"

"You have won them," Marie-Louise flashed.

"No artist ever feels himself worthy of laurel. His achievement always
falls short of his ambition."

"But 'Three Souls,'" Marie-Louise said; "surely you were satisfied?"

"I did not write it--the credit belongs to Mistress Anne. Your wreath
should be hers."

But Marie-Louise's mind was made up. Before Geoffrey could grasp what she
was about to do, she fluttered up the steps, and dropped the garland
lightly on his dark locks.

It became him well.

"Do you like it?" he asked Anne.

"To the Victor--the spoils," she told him, smiling.

Richard felt out of it. He wanted to get away, and he knew that he must
find Eve. Eve, who when he met her would laugh her light laugh, and call
him "Dicky Boy," and refuse to listen when he spoke of Crossroads.

The path that he took led to a little tea house built on the bank, which
gave a wide view of the river and the Jersey hills. He found Winifred and
Tony side by side and silent.

"Better late than never," was Tony's greeting.

"I am hunting for Eve."

"She and Meade were here a moment ago," Winifred informed him. "Sit down
and give an account of yourself. We haven't seen you in a million years."

"Just a week, dear lady. I have been horribly busy."

"You say that as if you meant the 'horribly.'"

"I do. It has been a 'bluggy' business, and I am tired." He laughed with
a certain amount of constraint. "If I were a boy, I should say 'I want to
go home.'"

Winifred gave him a quick glance. "What has happened?"

"Oh, everybody is ill at Crossroads. Beastly conditions. And they ought
to have been corrected. Beulah's ill."

"The little bride?"

"Yes. And Eric is frantic. He has written me, asking me