ace wants me because she thinks I have become the fashion--for
the same reason that Charlotte Plimpton wants me. Only there is this
difference--Grace will know the exact value of what I shall have done.
Not that she thinks me a Le Notre"--Alison laughed--"What I mean is, she
sees behind, she sees why it is fashionable to have a garden, since she
has worked out the values of that existence. But there!" Alison added,
with a provocative touch that did not escape him, "I am picking your
parishioners to pieces again."

"You have more right than I," he replied, "they have been your friends
since childhood."

"I thought you had gone away," she said.

"Why?" he demanded. Had she been to church again?

"My father told me before he left that you were to take a cruise with
him on the yacht he has chartered."

"He wrote me from New York--I was unable to go," Hodder said slowly.

He felt her gaze upon him, but resolutely refused to meet it.... They
walked on in silence until they came to the more open spaces near the
edge of the Park, thronged that Saturday evening by crowds which had
sought the city's breathing space. Perfect trees cast long, fantastic
shadows across the lawns, fountains flung up rainbows from the midst of
lakes; children of the tenements darted hither and thither, rolled and
romped on the grass; family parties picnicked everywhere, and a very
babel of tongues greeted the ear--the languages of Europe from Sweden to
Italy.

Suddenly an exclamation from her aroused and thrilled him.

"Isn't it wonderful how happy they are, and with what simple pleasures
they are satisfied! I often come over here on Saturdays and Sundays,
just to talk to them."

"Talk to them!" he echoed stupidly. "In their own languages?"

"Oh, I know a little German and Italian, though I can't lay claim to
Czech," she answered gayly. "Why are you so surprised that I should
possess such modest accomplishments?"

"It's not the accomplishments." He hesitated.

"No. You are surprised that I should be interested in humanity."
She stood facing him. "Well, I am," she said, half humorously, half
defiantly. "I believe I am more interested in human beings than in
anything else in the world--when they are natural, as these people are
and when they will tell one their joys and their troubles and their
opinions."

"Enthusiasm, self-assertion, had as usual, transformed her, and he saw
the colour glowing under her olive skin. Was she accusing him o