terrifyingly, you are superbly sound and
vigorous!"

Breaking in upon this speech, there came the quick, smooth purr of an
automobile with all its parts functioning perfectly, a streak of dark
gray past the shutters, the sigh of an engine stopped suddenly--Molly
Sommerville sprang from behind the steering wheel and ran into the
house. She was exquisitely flushed and eager when she came in, but
when she saw the two alone in the great, cool, dusky room, filled to
its remotest corners with the ineffable aroma of long, intimate,
and interrupted talk, she was brought up short. She faltered for an
instant and then continued to advance, her eyes on Sylvia. "It's so
hot," she said, at random, "and I thought I'd run over for tea--"

"Oh, of course," said Sylvia, jumping up in haste, "it's late! I'd
forgotten it was time for tea! Blame _me!_ Since I've been here, Aunt
Victoria has left it to me--where shall I say to have it set?"

"The pergola's lovely," suggested Molly. She took her close motor-hat
from the pure gold of her hair with a rather listless air.

"All right--the pergola!" agreed Sylvia, perhaps a little too
anxiously. In spite of herself, she gave, and she knew she was giving,
the effect of needing somehow to make something up to Molly....

CHAPTER XXV

NOTHING IN THE LEAST MODERN

Sylvia was sitting in the garden, an unread book on her knees,
dreaming among red and yellow and orange gladioli. She looked with a
fixed, bright, beatific stare at the flame-colored flowers and did not
see them. She saw only Felix Morrison, she heard only his voice, she
was brimming with the sense of him. In a few moments she would go into
the house and find him in the darkened living-room, as he had been
every afternoon for the last fortnight, ostensibly come in to lounge
away the afternoon over a book, really waiting for her to join
him. And when she came in, he would look up at her, that wonderful
penetrating deep look of his ... and she would welcome him with her
eyes.

And then they would talk! Judith and Arnold would be playing tennis,
oblivious of the heat, and Aunt Victoria would be annihilating the
tedious center of the day by sleep. Nobody would interrupt them for
hours. How they would talk! How they had talked! As she thought of it
the golden fortnight hummed and sang about Sylvia's ears like a Liszt
Liebes-Traum.

They had talked of everything in the world, and it all meant but one
thing, that they had disc