de without precedent or reason, but,
somehow, wonderfully attractive. They were whimsical, the pair, with
books as with regard to other things, but the few who might invade
their library were inclined to linger there. I always found a mingled
odor there of cigar-smoke and of some perfume which Jean preferred, and
I learned to like the combination. Maybe that was a perverted
taste,--cigar-smoke and delicate perfumes are not consorted in the code
of odor-lovers,--but, as I say, I learned to like it.

I have but little more to tell of this first wedded year of my dear
friends. One incident I may relate. It occurred less than a year from
the date of the outing in the woods. There were relations each of the
two should meet, and he was very busy with many things, and it was,
finally, after much thought, decided that Jean should go her way and he
his for two long weeks; so they bade good-by to each other and left the
city, in different directions, the same day.

It was just four days later when I got a note asking me to call at the
house. It was from Jean, and she was a little shame-faced when she met
me. Certain business complications had arisen in Grant's absence to
which I might attend, and it was for this that she had summoned me; but
she had an explanation to make. She did it, blushing.

"I went to my people, Alf," she said, "but it palled in a couple of
days. That is all. I'd rather be here alone, where he has been, and
await him here, than be anywhere else. It's foolish, of course, but
you, who know us both so well, may possibly understand." And she
blushed more than ever.

The next day there stalked into my office a man who asked me to lunch.
It was Grant Harlson. There was a quizzical look on his face, and a
rather happy one.

"I won't tell you anything, old man," he said. "I was only a few hours
behind the girl. That's all. I suppose we might as well keep up the
fool record we have begun. It suits me, anyhow."

And a single man, knowing nothing about such things, could give no
opinion. I was abusive and sarcastic, but he insisted on buying a
great luncheon.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE APE.

Given a man and a woman, married, loving each other, and what a recent
clever writer calls "the inevitable consequences" ordinarily come and
cause the inevitable anxiety, more, doubtless, to the man than to the
woman. There comes a time when she he loves must bear him their first
child. In primitiv