nd fledglings and grass and the light winds of heaven were more
important than brick and stone and stocks and bonds. He got up and
followed her flowing steps across the grass to where, near a clump of
alder bushes, she had seen a mother sparrow enticing a fledgling to
take wing. From her room upstairs, she had been watching this bit of
outdoor sociology. It suddenly came to Cowperwood, with great force,
how comparatively unimportant in the great drift of life were his own
affairs when about him was operative all this splendid will to
existence, as sensed by her. He saw her stretch out her hands
downward, and run in an airy, graceful way, stooping here and there,
while before her fluttered a baby sparrow, until suddenly she dived
quickly and then, turning, her face agleam, cried: "See, I have him! He
wants to fight, too! Oh, you little dear!"

She was holding "him," as she chose to characterize it, in the hollow
of her hand, the head between her thumb and forefinger, with the
forefinger of her free hand petting it the while she laughed and kissed
it. It was not so much bird-love as the artistry of life and of
herself that was moving her. Hearing the parent bird chirping
distractedly from a nearby limb, she turned and called: "Don't make
such a row! I sha'n't keep him long."

Cowperwood laughed--trig in the morning sun. "You can scarcely blame
her," he commented.

"Oh, she knows well enough I wouldn't hurt him," Berenice replied,
spiritedly, as though it were literally true.

"Does she, indeed?" inquired Cowperwood. "Why do you say that?"

"Because it's true. Don't you think they know when their children are
really in danger?"

"But why should they?" persisted Cowperwood, charmed and interested by
the involute character of her logic. She was quite deceptive to him.
He could not be sure what she thought.

She merely fixed him a moment with her cool, slate-blue eyes. "Do you
think the senses of the world are only five?" she asked, in the most
charming and non-reproachful way. "Indeed, they know well enough. She
knows." She turned and waved a graceful hand in the direction of the
tree, where peace now reigned. The chirping had ceased. "She knows I
am not a cat."

Again that enticing, mocking smile that wrinkled her nose, her
eye-corners, her mouth. The word "cat" had a sharp, sweet sound in her
mouth. It seemed to be bitten off closely with force and airy spirit.
Cowperwood surveyed her as he would