join us."

"What is that?"

"Love."

Her pure gaze did not falter nor her eyes droop. Curiously regarding
him, she seemed immersed in the solution of the problem as he had
solved it.

"Do you love me?" she asked.

"With all my soul--such as it is, with all my heart, with every thought,
every instinct, every breath I draw."

She considered him with fearless eyes; the beauty of them was all he
could endure.

"You love me?" she repeated.

He bent his head, incapable of speech.

"You wish me to love you?"

He looked at her, utterly unable to move his lips.

"_How_ do you wish me to love you?"

He opened his arms; she stepped forward, close to him.

Then their lips met.

"Oh," she said faintly, "I did not know it--it was so sweet."

And as her head fell back on his arm about her neck she looked up at him
full of wonder at this new knowledge he had taught her, marvelous,
unsuspected, divine in its simplicity. Then the first delicate blush
that ever mounted her face spread, tinting throat and forehead; she drew
his face down to her own.

The poet paced the dim veranda, arms folded, head bent. But his glance
was sideways and full of intelligence as it included two vague figures
coming slowly back through the moon-drenched meadow.

"By elimination we arrive at perfection," he mused; "and perfection is
success. There remain six more," he added irrelevantly, "but they're
young yet. Patience, subtle patience--and attention to the little
things." He pinched a morsel of air out of the darkness, examined it and
released it.

"The little things," he repeated; "that is a very precious thought....
I believe the sea air may agree with me--now and then."

And he wandered off into his "den" and unlocked a drawer in his desk,
and took out a bundle of legal papers, and tore them slowly, carefully,
into very small pieces.

V

[Illustration]

The double wedding at the Church of Sainte Cicindella was pretty and
sufficiently fashionable to inconvenience traffic on Fifth Avenue.
Partly from loyalty, partly from curiosity, the clans of Wayne and
Briggs, with their offshoots and social adherents, attended; and they
saw Briggs and Wayne on their best behavior, attended by Sudbury Grey
and Winsted Forest; and they saw two bridal visions of loveliness,
attended by six additional sister visions as bridesmaids; and they saw
the poet, agitated with the holy emotions of a father, now almost
unmanned, now rallyin