ging. He walked on air, holding tightly to the hand of his
goddess, seeing nothing but a blur of green and sunshine. Then a
clean-cut idea stabbed him like a stiletto: was this Vanessa or Iole?
And, to his own astonishment, he asked her quite naturally.

"Iole," she said, laughing. "Why?"

"Thank goodness," he said irrationally.

"But why?" she persisted curiously.

"Briggs--Briggs--" he stammered, and got no further. Perplexed, his
goddess walked on, thoughtful, pure-lidded eyes searching some
reasonable interpretation for the phrase, "Briggs--Briggs." But as Wayne
gave her no aid, she presently dismissed the problem, and bade him
select a tennis bat.

"I do hope you play well," she said. Her hope was comparatively vain;
she batted Wayne around the court, drove him wildly from corner to
corner, stampeded him with volleys, lured him with lobs, and finally
left him reeling dizzily about, while she came around from behind the
net, saying, "It's all because you have no tennis shoes. Come; we'll
rest under the trees and console ourselves with chess."

Under a group of huge silver beeches a stone chess-table was set
embedded in the moss; and Iole indolently stretched herself out on one
side, chin on hands, while Wayne sorted weather-beaten basalt and marble
chess-men which lay in a pile under the tree.

She chatted on without the faintest trace of self-consciousness the
while he arranged the pieces; then she began to move. He took a long
time between each move; but no sooner did he move than, still talking,
she extended her hand and shoved her piece into place without a fraction
of a second's hesitation.

When she had mated him twice, and he was still gazing blankly at the
mess into which she had driven his forces, she sat up sideways,
gathering her slim ankles into one hand, and cast about her for
something to do, eyes wandering over the sunny meadow.

"We had horses," she mused; "we rode like demons, bareback, until
trouble came."

"Trouble?"

"Oh, not trouble--poverty. So our horses had to go. What shall we
do--you and I?" There was something so subtly sweet, so exquisitely
innocent in the coupling of the pronouns that a thrill passed completely
through Wayne, and probably came out on the other side.

"I know what I'm going to do," he said, drawing a note-book and a pencil
from his pocket and beginning to write, holding it so she could see.

"Do you want me to look over your shoulder?" she asked.

"Pleas