hey haven't any feeling of poetry
and beauty."

"That's a fact, they haven't," he breathed, admiring her slenderness and
the absorbed, airy way in which she looked toward the hill, chin lifted,
lips smiling. "Well, guess I'd better telephone the plumbers, so they'll
get on the job first thing in the morning."

When he had telephoned, making it conspicuously authoritative and gruff
and masculine, he looked doubtful, and sighed, "S'pose I'd better be--"

"Oh, you must have that cup of tea first!"

"Well, it would go pretty good, at that."

It was luxurious to loll in a deep green rep chair, his legs thrust
out before him, to glance at the black Chinese telephone stand and the
colored photograph of Mount Vernon which he had always liked so much,
while in the tiny kitchen--so near--Mrs. Judique sang "My Creole Queen."
In an intolerable sweetness, a contentment so deep that he was wistfully
discontented, he saw magnolias by moonlight and heard plantation darkies
crooning to the banjo. He wanted to be near her, on pretense of helping
her, yet he wanted to remain in this still ecstasy. Languidly he
remained.

When she bustled in with the tea he smiled up at her. "This is awfully
nice!" For the first time, he was not fencing; he was quietly and
securely friendly; and friendly and quiet was her answer: "It's nice to
have you here. You were so kind, helping me to find this little home."

They agreed that the weather would soon turn cold. They agreed that
prohibition was prohibitive. They agreed that art in the home was
cultural. They agreed about everything. They even became bold. They
hinted that these modern young girls, well, honestly, their short skirts
were short. They were proud to find that they were not shocked by such
frank speaking. Tanis ventured, "I know you'll understand--I mean--I
don't quite know how to say it, but I do think that girls who pretend
they're bad by the way they dress really never go any farther. They give
away the fact that they haven't the instincts of a womanly woman."

Remembering Ida Putiak, the manicure girl, and how ill she had used him,
Babbitt agreed with enthusiasm; remembering how ill all the world had
used him, he told of Paul Riesling, of Zilla, of Seneca Doane, of the
strike:

"See how it was? Course I was as anxious to have those beggars licked to
a standstill as anybody else, but gosh, no reason for not seeing their
side. For a fellow's own sake, he's got to be broad-minded a