"Really? What a muff that cousin of mine is. He's such a muff, you know,
that the very sight of his pointed beard and pompadour hair and his
complacency sets me in fidgets to stir him up."

"I don't think you'd best use me for the stick next time," said Siward.
"He's not my cousin you know."

Mrs. Ferrall shrugged her boyish shoulders: "By the way"--she said
curiously--"who was that girl?"

"What girl," he asked coolly, looking at his hostess, now the very
incarnation of delicate mockery with her pretty laughing mouth, her
boyish sunburn and freckles.

"You won't tell me I suppose?"

"I'm sorry--"

"Was she pretty, Stephen?"

"Yes," he said sulkily; "I wish you wouldn't--"

"Nonsense! Do you think I'm going to let you off without some sort of
confession? If I had time now--but I haven't. Kemp has business letters:
he'll be furious; so I've got to take his cards or we won't have any
pennies to buy gasoline for our adored and shrieking Mercedes."

She retreated backward with a gay nod of malice, turned to enter the
house, and met Sylvia Landis face to face in the hallway.

"You minx!" she whispered; "aren't you ashamed?"

"Very much, dear. What for?" And catching sight of Siward outside in the
starlight, divined perhaps something of her hostess' meaning, for she
laughed uneasily, like a child who winces under a stern eye.

"You don't suppose for a moment," she began, "that I have--"

"Yes I do. You always do."

"Not with that sort of man," she returned naively; "he won't."

Mrs. Ferrall regarded her suspiciously: "You always pick out exactly the
wrong man to play with--"

They had moved back side by side into the hall, the hostess' arm linked
in the arm of the younger girl.

"The wrong man?" repeated Sylvia, instinctively freeing her arm, her
straight brows beginning to bend inward.

"I didn't mean that--exactly. You know how much I care for his
mother--and for him." The obstinate downward trend of the brows, the
narrowing blue gaze signalled mutiny to the woman who knew her so well.

"What is so wrong with Mr. Siward?" she asked.

"Nothing. There was an affair--"

"This spring in town. I know it. Is that all?"

"Yes--for the present," replied Grace Ferrall uncomfortably; then: "For
goodness' sake, Sylvia, don't cross examine me that way! I care a great
deal for that boy--"

"So do I. I've made him take my dog."

There was an abrupt pause, and presently Mrs. Ferrall began to laugh.

"I mean