* * * * *

When evening fell it found the Gay Lady on a cushion close by my knee.
Presently the Philosopher went off with the Lad down to the river. The
Skeptic accompanied them part of the distance, then returned quite
unexpectedly by way of the shrubbery, and swung up over the porch rail
at the end at a moment when the Gay Lady, feeling safe in his absence,
had gone to that end to see the moonlight upon the river.

"'All's fair in love and war,'" exulted the Skeptic, somewhat
breathlessly. It seemed to be a favourite maxim with him. I recalled his
having excused himself for eluding Dahlia by that same well-worn
proverb. "No--don't run! Have I become suddenly so terrifying?"

"Why should you be terrifying?" asked Hepatica. "Come and sit down and
tell us what you've all been doing while I was away."

Her back was toward me. There was a long window open close beside me. My
sympathy was with the Skeptic. I slipped through it.

An hour later I went out upon the porch again. Nobody was there. I sat
down alone, feeling half excited and half depressed, and wholly anxious
to know the outcome of the Skeptic's tactics. I waited a long time, as
it seemed to me. Then, without warning, a voice spoke. I could hardly
recognize it for the Skeptic's voice, it was strung so tense--with joy.

"Don't shoot," it said. "We'll come down."

I looked toward the end of the porch, where the vines cast a deep
shadow. I could not see them, but they must have been there all the
time. And the shadow cast by the vines was not a wide shadow at all.

PART II

I

DAHLIA AND THE PROFESSOR

Amen
Stuck in my throat.
--_Macbeth._

The Skeptic and his wife, Hepatica, being happily established in a
beautifully spacious flat in town, measuring thirty feet by forty over
all, invited me to visit them. As both had spent considerable time at my
country home in summer, they insisted that it was only just for me to
allow them, that second winter after their marriage, to return my
hospitality. This argument alone would hardly have sufficed, for winter
in the country--connected by trolley with the town--is hardly less
delightful to me than summer itself. But there were other and convincing
arguments, and they ended by bringing me to the city for a month's visit
in the heart of the season.

On the first morning at breakfast--I had arrived late the night
before--there was much to talk about.