MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.

Pen's voice, when it came, was lower and fuller than he had remembered
it but there was the old soft chuckle in it.

"Cross patch! Draw the latch! Say please, like a nice child and then
I'll play a game of cards with you."

Jim rapped on the door and stepped in. "Hello, Pen!" he said, holding
out his hand.

She was changed and yet unchanged. A little thinner, older, yet more
beautiful in her young womanhood than in her charming girlhood. Her
chestnut hair was wrapped in soft braids around her head instead of
being bundled up in her neck. Her eyes looked larger and deeper set but
they were the same steady, clear eyes of old; ageless eyes; the eyes of
the woman who thinks. She had the same full soft lips, and as Jim held
out his hand the same flash of dimples.

"Hello, Still! The mountains have come to Mahomet!"

"And a poor welcome I gave you," replied Jim. "Hello, Sara."

Jim turned to the great invalid chair. There, propped up in cushions,
lay a fat travesty of the old Saradokis. This was a Sara whose tawny
hair was turning gray with suffering; whose mouth, once so full and
boyish, was now heavy and sinister, whose buoyancy had changed to the
bitter irritability of the hopeless invalid.

Sara looked Jim over deliberately, then dropped his hand. "How do you
think I am? Enjoying the dirty deal I've had from life?"

Jim had not realized before just what a dirty deal Sara had been given.
"I'm sorry about it, Sara," he said.

Saradokis gave an ugly laugh. "Sounds well! I've never heard a word from
you since the day we ran the Marathon. You hold a grudge as well as a
Greek, Jim."

"Gee, I'd forgotten all about the race!" exclaimed Jim.

"I haven't," returned Sara. "Neither the race nor several other things."

Jim shrugged his shoulders and turned to Pen, who was watching the two
men anxiously.

"Tell me about your plans. I'm mighty happy to have you here."

"Sara's had the feeling for a long time that this climate would help
him, and we've talked in a general way about coming. It was Mr. Freet
that told Sara he thought there were some good real estate chances here
and that decided Sara. Sara has done him a number of good turns in
investments round New York."

Jim looked at Sara sharply but made no comment on Pen's remarks. "Are
you comfortable here?" he asked, looking about the tent house.

It was a roomy place. There was a good floor and a wooden wainscoting
that rose three f