by a multitude of palms and flowering
plants, a white-jacketed negro appeared with a noble smile and a more
important tray, whereon tinkled bedewed glasses and a crystal pitcher,
against whose sides the ice clinked sweetly. There was a complement of
straws.

When they had helped him to an easy chair on the porch, Harkless
whistled luxuriously. "Ah, my bachelor!" he exclaimed, as he selected a
straw.

"'Who would fardels bear?'" rejoined Mr. Meredith. Then came to the
other a recollection of an auburn-haired ball player on whom the third
strike had once been called while his eyes wandered tenderly to the
grandstand, where the prettiest girl of that commencement week was
sitting.

"Have you forgot the 'Indian Princess'?" he asked.

"You're a dull old person," Tom laughed. "Haven't you discovered that
'tis they who forget us? And why shouldn't they? Do _we_ remember
well?--anybody except just us two, I mean, of course."

"I've a notion we do, sometimes."

The other set his glass on the tray, and lit his cigarette. "Yes; when
we're unsuccessful. Then I think we do."

"That may be true."

"Of course it is. If a lady wishes to make an impression on me that is
worth making, let her let me make none on her."

"You think it is always our vanity?"

"Analyze it as your revered Thomas does and you shall reach the same
conclusion. Let a girl reject you and--" Meredith broke off, cursing
himself inwardly, and, rising, cried gaily: "What profiteth it a man
if he gain the whole wisdom in regard to women and loseth not his own
heart? And neither of us is lacking a heart--though it may be; one can't
tell, one's self; one has to find out about that from some girl. At
least, I'm rather sure of mine; it's difficult to give a tobacco-heart
away; it's drugged on the market. I'm going to bring out the dogs; I'm
spending the summer at home just to give them daily exercise."

This explanation of his continued presence in Rouen struck John as
quite as plausible as Meredith's more seriously alleged reasons for not
joining his mother and sister, at Winter Harbor. (He possessed a mother,
and, as he explained, he had also sisters to satiety, in point of
numbers.) Harkless knew that Tom had stayed to look after him; and he
thought there never was so poor a peg as himself whereon to hang
the warm mantle of such a friendship. He knew that other mantles of
affection and kindliness hung on that self-same peg, for he had been
moved by the l