d's face fell.

"Certainly. You don't think you are the only man, do you?"

"Well, the only one left in town."

Raymond gave a little laugh and changed the subject. He had no intention
of getting behind his companion's screen. With a wider conception of his
path, he more diligently kept to the middle.

After the first fortnight he even went so far as to arrange for business
engagements, now and then, in order to keep his brain clear.

Joan always met these empty spaces in her days with a keen sense of loss
which she hid completely from Raymond.

His business demands were offset by her skilfully timed escapes from the
Brier Bush. She would either be too early or too late for Raymond, and
so while he paid homage to his code, Joan appeared to make the code
unnecessary.

And the weather became hotter and moister and the moral and physical
fibre of the city-bound became limper.

After a week of not seeing each other Joan and Raymond made up for lost
time by galloping instead of trotting along.

"Stevenson and O. Henry couldn't beat this adventure of ours," Raymond
exclaimed one evening, wiping the moisture from his forehead. "And I bet
thousands of folks would think better of one another if----"

"If--they had the line in their hands," Joan broke in; "but they
haven't, you know!"

"Exactly."

Just then Raymond made a bad break. He asked Joan if she did not trust
him well enough to give him her telephone number.

"Something might occur," he said, "business pops up unexpectedly. I hate
to lose a chance of seeing you--and I hate to wait on street corners."

"I am sorry," Joan replied, "but that would spoil everything."

Raymond flushed. It was just such plunges as this that made him recoil.

"I understand," he replied, coolly; "I had hoped that you could trust
me."

"It is not a matter of trust. It's keeping to the bargain."

There was nothing more to say. But, quite naturally, several days
elapsed before they saw each other again.

Fierce, broiling days without even the debilitating moisture to ease the
suffering citizens.

Joan, alone in the dark, hot studio, thought of Doris and Nancy and
wondered!

"Of course, what I am doing would be horrid if I didn't know all about
_him_," and then Joan tossed about. "Some day--it will be such a lark to
tell them--and think of his surprise when he--knows! I'll see him with
all barriers down next winter," for at this time Joan had written and
accepted all Doris'