features.

"Does Gray like him as much as ever, Neville?"

"O Lord, Gray adores him, and I like him, and you knit neckties for him,
and Jessie doses him, and Cecile quotes him--"

"And Shiela?"

"Oh, Shiela seems to like him," said Cardross genially. His wife raised
her eyes, then calmly scrutinized her knitting.

"And Mr. Hamil?"

"What about him, dear?"

"Does he seem to like Shiela?"

Her husband glanced musingly out over the lawn where, in their white
flannels, Shiela and Hamil were now seated together under a brilliant
Japanese lawn umbrella, examining the pile of plans, reports and
blue-prints which had accumulated in Hamil's office since his absence.

"He--seems to like her," nodded Cardross, "I'm sure he does. Why not?"

"They were together a good deal, you said last night."

"Yes; but either Gray or I or one of the guides--"

"Of course. Then you don't think--"

Cardross waited and finally looked up. "What, dear?"

"That there is anything more than a sensible friendship--"

"Between Shiela and Garret Hamil?"

"Yes; we were not discussing the Emperor of China."

Cardross laughed and glanced sideways at the lawn umbrella.

"I--don't--know."

His wife raised her brows but not her head.

"Why, Neville?"

"Why what?"

"Your apparent doubt as to the significance of their friendship."

"Dear--I don't know much about those things."

His wife waited.

"Hamil is so nice to everybody; and I've not noticed how he is with
other young girls," continued her husband restlessly. "He does seem to
tag after Shiela.... Once or twice I thought--or it seemed to me--or
rather--"

His wife waited.

"Well, he seemed rather impressed by her field qualities," concluded
Cardross weakly.

His wife waited.

Her husband lit a cigar very carefully: "That's all I noticed, dear."

Mrs. Cardross laid the narrow bit of woven blue silk on her knee and
smoothed it reflectively.

"Neville!"

"Yes, dear."

"I wonder whether Mr. Hamil has heard."

Her husband did not misunderstand. "I think it likely. That old
harridan--"

"_Please_, Neville!"

"Well, then, Mrs. Van Dieman has talked ever since you and Shiela sat on
the aspirations of her impossible son."

"You think Mr. Hamil knows?"

"Why not? Everybody does, thanks to that venomous old lady and her limit
of an offspring."

"And in spite of that you think Mr. Hamil might be seriously impressed?"

"Why not?" repeated Cardross. "She's the sweet