pursued imperturbably, "that we may think he
wants her merely for it."

"Bravo!" puffed Harwood smokily from his camp-stool. "She is too clever
to expect any weak generosity from any of us. She believes we will think
the worst. And won't we? Viva Nietzsche, and perish pity!"

"Shame upon us, then," cried Frau Stern. "She will gif up that fine young
man for fear of our talk? Never!"

"She will send him away, dear Frau Stern, the moment he gives her the
chance," declared Dennis. "What else can she do? She can never take the
chance of our surmises. Behold us, the destroyers! The victims are
prepared."

"Can't we do something about it?" Harwood chuckled. "Repent? Be as
harmless as doves? Let's write a roundrobin solemnly stating that, to
the best of our knowledge and belief, he wants her for herself and
not for it."

"Gently," exclaimed Mrs. Dennis, as she blew out Harwood's poised and
lighted match. "You surely don't imagine Crocker will propose the very
day she shows it to him."

"My dear," protested Dennis, "don't we all know him well enough to
understand that any shock will produce that effect? If his mother died or
his horse, his vines got the scale, his Ghirlandaio sprung a crack, his
university gave him an honorary degree--these would all be reasons for
proposing to Emma. Dear old Crocker is like that; any jolt would affect
him that way."

"Has it occurred to anybody that Emma may have foreseen just this
complication and quietly got rid of it first?" suggested Mrs. Dennis, the
really practical member of our group, adding, "That's how I'd have served
you if I'd wanted him."

"Never," responded Dennis. "She loves it too well, and then she would
feel we felt she had spirited it away on purpose."

"Besides," continued Harwood, whose buried aspirations Emmawards had long
ago flowered into a minute analysis of her moods, "she is true blue, you
know. She will never serve us like that. She may immolate the mighty
Crocker upon the altar of our collective curiosity, but she will never
dodge us."

"Cannot we all go back to our own countries and leave them alone,"
suggested Frau Stern almost tearfully; "but no; we no longer haf
countries. Here we belong; elsewhere the air is too strong for our little
lungs. I pity us, and I pity more those poor young people. If only they
will but haf the sense to trample on our talk."

"That, too, would be a sensation," Dennis added cheerfully, and we went
our ways, as usual, with