im. I remembered then that
she had rather seemed to resent the sisterly salute I thought necessary
to bestow on him after the wedding, and the brotherly salutes (repeated
four times in succession) he had given me in return. I decided at that
moment I would respect her objections and only shake hands with William
in future. I am sure she preferred it, and I should hate to displease
her.

Besides, beards do rasp one so.

Henry now emerged from the study full of hearty greeting and
_bonhomie_. He seemed less surprised at William's altered appearance
than I did, and was certainly more pleased about it.

'What made you let him do it?' I said reproachfully to Marion when we
were alone, 'he was a really handsome man before, and now----'

'That's just it,' she interrupted, 'he was too handsome, and it wasn't
safe for him.'

'Not safe, Marion?'

'Women wouldn't leave him alone--they all flirted with him. It would
have been all right if he'd been used to it before, but getting
good-looking so suddenly unbalanced him. From a kind of puzzled wonder
that he should thus attract the opposite sex, he began to develop an
interest in what he termed "their bewildering number of types." He
said he used to think they were all exactly alike. It was when he
declared his intention of writing a eulogy on woman that I stepped in
and insisted on his letting his beard grow again. Don't you think I
acted for the best?'

'No doubt you did,' I said pensively, 'but he had such an attractive
mouth.'

Marion regarded me severely. 'That's what all the other women seemed
to think. I feel I was justified in protecting him.'

'No doubt you were, dear,' I murmured, with meekly lowered eyes.
'Don't you ever regret him as he was before?'

She sighed a little. 'Sometimes--particularly when dear William was
just beginning to grow again--did I have my qualms of discouragement.
A beard in its incipient stages is an unbecoming, almost startling
affair, Netta. Then of course, I find solace by looking at this,' and
she held out a small locket containing a portrait of William in his
glorified state. 'Also I always keep his white spats and lavender
gloves as a remembrance.'

There was a hint of sadness in the idea. It seemed almost as if
William was dead--one phase of him was, at all events.

'Then you _do_ regret----' I began.

'I regret nothing, Netta,' she broke in very decidedly. 'I am now
getting quite reconciled to dear William's