failed to stir in him the half-wistful envy of the first day when he had
seen her so gazing at the driver of the pink racing car.

"If Corrie can teach a Persian kitten to eat candy, he probably can
teach it to digest candy," she offered serene reply. "Besides, he loves
Firdousi, as much as I do."

"I only gave him some fruit-paste to see his jaws work," the culprit
defended. "He needs exercise. And so do I."

"Not that kind, yours work all the time. It is only an hour since
breakfast and you have talked ever since," corrected his cousin.

"I haven't!"

"You have."

Corrie ran his fingers through his heavy fair hair, carefully set the
purring kitten on the floor, and stood up.

"All right, if you say so," he submitted gracefully. "What you say, I
stand for."

The argument was pure sport, of course. But with that last playful
sentence, Corrie suddenly turned his dark-blue eyes upon Isabel with an
expression not playful, as if himself struck by some deeper force in the
words.

"What you say, I stand for," he repeated, and paused.

Flavia and Gerard both looked at him. All the fresh ardor of first love,
all the impulsive faith of eighteen and its entire devotion invested
Corrie Rose and illumined the shining regard in which he enveloped his
cousin. There was in him a quality that lifted the moment above mere
sentimentality, a young strength and straightforward earnestness at once
dignified and pathetic with the pathos of all transient things that must
go down before the battery of the years.

It would have been difficult to encounter a more enchanting family life
than that into which Allan Gerard had been drawn. The Rose household was
as redolent of simple fragrance as a household of roses, in spite of its
costly luxury, its retinue of servants and lavish expenditure. Thomas
Rose's wealth had been made so long since, before the birth of the
younger generation, that to one and all it was merely the natural
condition of affairs, not in the least affecting them personally. Money
was very nearly non-existent to them, since they never were obliged to
consider its lack or abundance. They spent as they desired, precisely as
they ate when hungry or drank according to thirst, without either stint
or excess. It was Arcadian, it was improbable, but it was so. And the
guard-wall that encircled their gilded Arcadia was a strong mutual
affection not to be overthrown from without. Only by internal treason
could that domain