d your daughter, Mrs. Falkener,
went like a bird. She's a wonderful horsewoman--not only looks well
herself, but makes the horse look well, too."

At this Mrs. Falkener's manner grew distinctly more cheerful, and she
asked:

"And, by the way, where is Cora?"

Tucker, annoyed at the desertion on the part of his ally, pressed his
hand over his eyes and sighed audibly, but no one noticed him.

"I took a wrong turn in search of a short cut and lost the rest of
them," said Crane. "But she'll be back directly. She's perfectly safe.
She was with Eliot, our neighbor, and a fellow named Lefferts, whom she
seemed to know."

"Lefferts!" cried Mrs. Falkener. "That man here! O Burton, how could you
leave my daughter in such company? O Solon, you remember I told you
about that man!"

Tucker nodded shortly. He wasn't going to take any interest in any
one's grievances until his own had been disposed of.

"What's the matter with Lefferts?" said Crane. "He's staying with Eliot,
and they asked us all over to lunch to-morrow. Shan't we go?"

"No, nowhere that that young man is," cried Mrs. Falkener, who seemed to
be a good deal excited by the news. "He's an idler, a waster. Why,
Burton," she ended in a magnificent climax, "he's a poet!"

"So Cora told me."

"He affects to be devoted to Cora," her mother went on bitterly, "and
follows her about everywhere, without the slightest encouragement on her
part, I can assure you, but I have known him to take a most insolent
tone about her. The very first time I ever saw him, he was sitting
beside me at a party, and I said, as Cora came across the room with that
magnificent walk of hers, 'She moves like a full-rigged ship, doesn't
she?' He answered: 'Or rather, more like a submarine; you never know
where she'll pop up next. Yes, there's a sort of practical mystery about
Cora very suitable to modern warfare.' He called her Cora behind her
back, but not to her face, be sure. And very soon a poem of his appeared
in one of the magazines--'To My Love, Comparing Her to a Submarine.' I
thought it most insulting."

"And what did Cora think?" asked Crane.

"She hardly read the thing through. Cora is far too sensible to pay much
attention to poetry."

"But poets are different, I suppose," answered Crane. Personally, he was
pleased with the submarine simile.

"No, nor poets, either," said Mrs. Falkener tartly, and rising she
hurried away to see if by some fortunate chance her errant daughter