ren!' Jack loves children, too, but he
spoils them. I don't believe in letting children run a house; it isn't
good for them, and it isn't good for you. Let them have their own toys
and treat them as kindly as possible, but----"

John Dryden was a salesman in a furniture house; perhaps the city's
finest furniture house. Martie suspected that his pleasant, half-shy,
yet definite manner, made him an excellent salesman. He talked to her
about his associates, whom he took upon their own valuations, and
deeply admired. This one was a "wizard" at figures, and that one had "a
deuce of a manner with women." John chuckled over their achievements,
but she knew that he himself must be the secret wonder of the place. He
might be more or less, but he was certainly not a typical furniture
salesman. Sometimes the manager took him to lunch; Martie wondered if
he quoted the queer books he read, and made the staid echoes of the
club to which they went awake to his pagan laughter.

His extraordinarily happy temperament knew sudden despairs, but they
were usually because he had made a "rotten mistake," or because he was
"such a fool" about something. He never complained of the stupid daily
round; perhaps it was not stupid to him, who always had a book under
his arm, and to whom the first snow and the first green leaves were
miracles of delight every year. He treated Adele exactly as if she had
been an engaging five-year-old, and she had charming childish
mannerisms for him alone. He pacified her when she fretted and
complained, and was eagerly grateful when her mood was serene. Her
prettiness and her little spoiled airs, Martie realized surprisedly,
were full of appeal for him.

"You don't mean that--you don't mean that!" he would say to her when
she sputtered and raged. He listened absently to her long dissertation
upon the persons--and for Adele the world was full of them--who tried
to cheat her, or who were insolent to her, and to whom she was
triumphantly insolent in return. She found Martie much more sympathetic
as a listener.

Toward Martie, too, John soon began to display a peculiar
sensitiveness. At first it was merely that she spurred his sense of
humour; he began to test the day's events by her laughter. After that
her more general opinions impressed him; he watched her at dinner and
accepted eagerly her verdict upon political affairs or the books and
plays of the hour. She noticed, and was a little touched to notice,
that he