smiled to one side as if not to dislodge a
cigarette, while the eyes kept languidly superior. All at once Alice was
reminded of Walter; and the slight frown caused by this idea had just
begun to darken her forehead when Walter himself stepped out of the open
door of the house and appeared upon the veranda. Upon his head was a new
straw hat, and in his hand was a Malacca stick with an ivory top, for
Alice had finally decided against it for herself and had given it to
him. His mood was lively: he twirled the stick through his fingers like
a drum-major's baton, and whistled loudly.

Moreover, he was indeed accompanied. With him was a thin girl who had
made a violent black-and-white poster of herself: black dress, black
flimsy boa, black stockings, white slippers, great black hat down upon
the black eyes; and beneath the hat a curve of cheek and chin made white
as whitewash, and in strong bilateral motion with gum.

The loungers on the veranda were familiars of the pair; hailed them with
cacklings; and one began to sing, in a voice all tin:

"Then my skirt, Sal, and me did go
Right straight to the moving-pitcher show.
OH, you bashful vamp!"

The girl laughed airily. "God, but you guys are wise!" she said.

"Come on, Wallie."

Walter stared at his sister; then grinned faintly, and nodded at Russell
as the latter lifted his hat in salutation. Alice uttered an incoherent
syllable of exclamation, and, as she began to walk faster, she bit her
lip hard, not in order to look wistful, this time, but to help her keep
tears of anger from her eyes.

Russell laughed cheerfully. "Your brother certainly seems to have found
the place for 'colour' today," he said. "That girl's talk must be full
of it."

But Alice had forgotten the colour she herself had used in accounting
for Walter's peculiarities, and she did not understand. "What?" she
said, huskily.

"Don't you remember telling me about him? How he was going to write,
probably, and would go anywhere to pick up types and get them to talk?"

She kept her eyes ahead, and said sharply, "I think his literary tastes
scarcely cover this case!"

"Don't be too sure. He didn't look at all disconcerted. He didn't seem
to mind your seeing him."

"That's all the worse, isn't it?"

"Why, no," her friend said, genially. "It means he didn't consider
that he was engaged in anything out of the way. You can't expect to
understand everything boys do at his age; they do al