o so unpractical an arrangement as that
short-lipped makeshift, designed to eject an oar at the first stroke.
Geoffry Daymond agreed with her in this, as in most of her opinions. He
declared in confidence to his mother that her views must either be
accepted or flatly contradicted, for they possessed no atmosphere, and
they consequently afforded no debatable ground.

Kenwick, on the other hand, very rarely saw fit to agree with the
positive young person who looked so pretty when she was crossed, or with
any one else, for the matter of that. He told May that she would row
better if she were not so wool-gathering, merely for the pleasure of
hearing her scornful disclaimer; and when Pauline pointed out that she
was herself the wool-gatherer, although her oar was quite as tractable
as her sister's, he assured her that she was as much a child of the
fleeting hour as himself.

It was Kenwick's method to talk to people about themselves, with a
judicious linking together of his own peculiarities and theirs. He
imagined that that sort of thing lent a piquancy to conversation. The
aim of Oliver Kenwick's life was to be effective; his art had suffered
from it, and even in social matters he sometimes had the misfortune to
overshoot the mark.

"Uncle Dan," Pauline had asked, one day, after an hour spent in
Kenwick's society, "what is the reason Mr. Kenwick makes so little
impression?"

"Because he doesn't tally," May put in.

"Well," said Uncle Dan, scowling perplexedly; "I don't quite make him
out. But we've always had a feeling in our family that some of the
Kenwicks were not quite our own kind";--an expression of opinion on
Uncle Dan's part which owed its careful moderation to the fact that he
had accepted and still treasured the poppy sketch. For there was one
thing that the Colonel deferred to even more than to his prejudices, and
that was his sense of obligation.

He therefore submitted, with a very good grace, to seeing a good deal of
the young man, and if it occasionally irked him to have Stephen Kenwick's
grandson about, he found his account in the spirit and ease with which
his two Pollys dealt with the situation.

Kenwick, of course, attached himself ostensibly to the Daymond party. He
seemed to bear Geof no grudge because of his defection in the matter of
the tramp among the Dolomites, which he himself, indeed, had appeared
ready enough to relinquish. Without any preconcerted plan it usually
happened that the two