" rejoined Mark Heath, "that we've got our work cut
out for us. I will now announce to the Little Girl who is Having a
Party the program of games and sports. The festival of the women is on
in Chinatown."

"I saw it from the car as I passed Dupont Street," chimed in Kate.
"And the Quarter is blazing like a fire in a tar barrel."

In the most natural manner, Kate linked herself to Mark Heath. She
always yielded the place beside Bertram when Eleanor was present;
quite as naturally, she herself took that place when Eleanor was away.
Bertram cast a long look on his companion; and he ventured for the
first time in weeks, on something like a compliment.

"What _has_ happened to you? You look--hanged if I can just tell you
how you look, but it's great!"

"Oh, compliment me! I love compliments! That's my birthday present
from you. I wonder if the Chinese babies will be out on the
street--the little, golden babies. Why haven't they a legend about
those babies? Mr. Heath, do you know Chinese mythology? Kate, aren't
you sure those children are primroses transformed by the fairies to
hide them from the goblins?"

Bertram frowned a little as she drew the other couple into their
private conversation. But he continued to study her. This lightness
and brightness which she had developed so suddenly, seemed quite to
dim the radiance of his own personality. He fell into a quiet which
lasted far into the evening. She, on her side, moved like one
intoxicated by some divine liquor. Never had she seemed so gay, so
young; and--though he did not wholly formulate this--never had she
seemed to him so inaccessible.

They approached a dark alley beside an Italian tenement. Eleanor,
dancing around the corner, came upon it suddenly. She drew up.

"There's an ogre in this dark den--I know there is. I must see him!
Just think, I'm ten years old going onto eleven, and I never yet saw a
real ogre. Come on--we're going ogre hunting!" She plunged into the
shadows. Mark, laughing, followed.

Eleanor peeped into the door of a wine-house, peeped over a board
fence, and came back to announce:

"He's not in. I left my card--oh, there he is--he's visiting the
goblin in that garden across the street!" She skipped across to an old
stone wall which held its half-acre of earth suspended over the
hill-fall. Mark skipped with her; Bertram followed at a distance as
one who plays a game of which he is not sure. Eleanor brought up
against the wall.

"There