r Marshall ways. We only own one umbrella for the
whole family at home, and that's to lend. I wear a rubber coat and put
on a sou'wester and _let_ it rain."

"You would!" he said in an unconscious imitation of Arnold's accent.

She laughed up at him. "Shall I confess why I do? Because my hair is
naturally curly."

"Confession has to be prompter than that to save souls," he answered.
"I knew it was, five weeks ago, when you splashed the water up on it
so recklessly there by the brook."

She was astonished by this revelation of depths behind that
well-remembered clear gaze of admiration, and dismayed by such
unnatural accuracy of observation.

"How cynical of you to make such a mental comment!"

He apologized. "It was automatic--unconscious. I've had a good deal of
opportunity to observe young ladies." And then, as though aware that
the ice was thin over an unpleasant subject, he shifted the talk.
"Upon my word, I wonder how Molly and Morrison _will_ manage?"

"Oh, Molly's wonderful. She'd manage anything," said Sylvia with
conviction.

"Morrison is rather wonderful himself," advanced Page. "And that's a
magnanimous concession for me to make when I'm now so deep in his
bad books. Do you know, by the way," he asked, looking with a quick
interrogation at the girl, "_why_ I'm so out of favor with him?"

Sylvia's eyes opened wide. She gazed at him, startled, fascinated.
Could "it" be coming so suddenly, in this casual, abrupt manner? "No,
I don't know," she managed to say; and braced herself.

"I don't blame him in the least. It was very vexing. I went back on
him--so to speak; dissolved an aesthetic partnership, in which he
furnished the brains, and my coal-mines the sinews of art. _I_ was one
of his devotees, you know. For some years after I got out of college I
collected under his guidance, as my mother does, as so many people do.
I even specialized. I don't like to boast, but I dare affirm that no
man knows more than I about sixteenth century mezza-majolica. It is
a branch of human knowledge which you must admit is singularly
appropriate for a dweller in the twentieth century. And of great value
to the world. My collection was one of Morrison's triumphs."

Sylvia felt foolish and discomfited. With an effort she showed a
proper interest in his remarks. "Was?" she asked. "What happened to
it?"

"I went back on it. In one of the first of those fits of moral
indigestion. One day, I'd been reading a report in on