ille, coldly.
"No wonder Rita is nervous."

"Rita is nervous," said Ogilvy, "because she's been on a bat and supped
somewhere until the coy and rosy dawn chased her homeward. And your
pretty paragon, Miss West, was with the party--"

"What?" said Neville, sharply.

"Sure thing! Harry Annan, Rita, Burleson, Valerie--and I don't know who
else. They feasted somewhere east of Coney--where the best is like the
wuerst--and ultimately became full of green corn, clams, watermelon, and
assorted fidgets.... Can't you come up and look at my picture?"

Neville got up, frowning, and followed Ogilvy upstairs.

Rita Tevis, swathed in a blanket from which protruded a dripping
tinselled fish's tail, sat disconsolately on a chair, knitting a
red-silk necktie for some party of the second part, as yet unidentified.

"Mr. Neville," she said, "Sam has been quarrelling with me every minute
while I'm doing my best in that horrid tub of water. If anybody thinks
it's a comfortable pose, let them try it! I wish--I _wish_ I could have
the happiness of seeing Sam afloat in this old fish-scale suit with
every spangle sticking into him and his legs cramped into this
unspeakable tail!"

She extended a bare arm, shook hands, pulled up her blanket wrap, and
resumed her knitting with a fierce glance at Ogilvy, who had attempted
an appealing smile.

Neville stood stock-still before the canvas. The picture promised well;
it was really beautiful--the combined result of several outdoor studies
now being cleverly worked up. But Ogilvy's pictures never kept their
promise.

[Illustration: "Neville stood stock-still before the canvas."]

"Also," observed Rita, reproachfully, "_I_ posed _en plein air_ for
those rainbow sketches of his--and though it was a lonely cove with a
cunningly secluded little crescent beach, I was horribly afraid of
somebody coming--and besides I got most cruelly sun-burned--"

"Rita! You _said_ you enjoyed that excursion!" exclaimed Ogilvy, with
pathos.

"I said it to flatter that enormous vanity of yours, Sam. I had a
perfectly wretched time."

"What sort of a time did you have last evening?" inquired Neville,
turning from the picture.

"Horrid. Everybody ate too much, and Valerie spooned with a new man--I
don't remember his name. She went out in a canoe with him and they sang
'She kissed him on the gangplank when the boat moved out.'"

Neville, silent, turned to the picture once more. In a low rapid voice
he indica