outstretched hand in his own and
gave it a grip which made it sting. He began to whistle cheerfully.

"Should we be happier if we never disagreed?" she asked thoughtfully.

The whistle stopped. "Jupiter, no! I want a thinking being to talk things
over with, not a mental pincushion."

"Thank you.--Isn't it lovely here?"

"Delightful.--Julie, do you know we'll have been married five years next
September?"

"It doesn't seem possible."

"I shouldn't know it, to look at you," he observed. He rolled upon his
left side and regarded her from under intent brows. "You haven't grown a
day older."

"I'm not sure that's a compliment."

"It's meant for one. Do you know you're a beauty?"

"I never was one and never shall be," she answered laughing, but she could
not object to the obvious sincerity of his opinion as he delivered it.

"You're near enough to satisfy me. I'd rather have your good looks than
all the--Well, I sat in front of a newly married pair on the way home
to-night--that fellow Scrivener and his bride. _She's_ what people call a
raving beauty, I suppose. I wouldn't have her in the house at a dollar an
hour. She's a whiner. Had him doing something to satisfy her whim every
minute. I heard him trying to tell her about something that interested
him, but she couldn't take time from herself to listen. His voice had a
note of fatigue in it, already, or I'm not Robeson. I tell you,
Juliet--that's the sort of thing that makes a bachelor vow to stay single,
and he can't be blamed."

"Suppose a bachelor had overheard us half an hour ago?"

"I'm glad none did--but if he had it wouldn't have disgusted him the way
the other sort of thing did me to-day. A brisk little altercation is
nothing, with unlimited hours of friendliness and understanding before and
after. But a perpetual drizzle of fault finding and exactions--would make
a fellow go hang himself. Mrs. Robeson, do you know, you're a very
exceptional young person?"

"In what way, sir?"

"Whatever you do, you never nag. I've an awful suspicion that Judith Carey
nags. You know how to let a man alone when he's in the mood for being
alone. She never does. Carey had me out there not long ago, for what he
called a quiet, confidential talk on some business matters. We went into
what is supposed to be his private room and shut the door. Probably she
came to that door not less than twelve times during that two hours. She
called Carey away on every sort of pretext. Once