is truth always unpleasant? Why
can't it be as romantic and agreeable as the things you want to say?"

"Why," countered Garry, "isn't peace as romantic as war? Ask somebody
who knows. I don't."

He stared curiously at Kenny and shook his head. A heavy hand with the
truth, that Irishman; and about as understandable in these splendid,
tender days of his idiocy and bliss, as March wind, comets or
star-dust. His passion for truth was literally a passion, relentless
and exact. He worked harder. His steadiness, as Jan said, was grim
and conscious and a thing of terror to anything in his path. He
wrestled with his check book and managed somehow to keep his studio in
order. And he was kinder. Fahr, in particular, remarked it; and Fahr,
worshipping Kenny, had sputtered and endured the brunt of many tempests.

"But, Garry," he confided, round-eyed and apprehensive, "honest Injun,
I don't think he ought to bottle up his temper that way. Sometimes I
can almost see him swelling up and then when he speaks and I'm waiting
for an Irish roar, his voice is so quiet and pleasant that I feel
queer. I--I swear I do. Damn it all, I'm liking him more every day."

"So am I," said Garry honestly. "But--"

"But what?"

"I wish he'd be less turbulently happy."

"Let him," said Sid sagely, "Darn few can."

"A pendulum," reminded Garry, "swings both ways. And he's an
extremist. If he'd just plant his two feet solidly on the ground and
get his head out of the clouds. He's got to do it sometime."

"Oh, hell," said Sid. "Give him time. If that girl was going to marry
me I'd climb up a few air-steps myself and stick my head into any old
cloud."

"Good old Sid!" said Garry affectionately. "You'd be sure to hit your
head on a star and then you'd be amazed and--"

"Oh, you go to thunder!" blustered Sid.

By now Kenny's Bohemia was rushing through its yearly cycle of costume
dances. Motley groups emerged at times from Ann's castle and departed
in taxis.

"And Gawd knows where," said Mrs. Ryan from the third floor front of
the tenement that faced the street. "They're a wild bunch and my
Cassie'll never travel wid 'em. Last week the architeks rigged up
somethin' fierce and danced in 'the streets of Paris,' wid bullyvard
cafes, they called 'em, built into the dance hall, an actress singin'
the Marseillaise in a flag, and a Roosian hussy dancin' in boots. And
Mr. O'Neill, God save him for a pleasant gentleman though a