iver, "that you're afraid to roughen your hands
and spoil your complexion."

"If you like to put it that way--symbolically."

"Symbolically be hanged!" cried Oliver, losing his temper. "You're an
effeminate little rotter, and I'm through with you. Go on and wag your
tail and sit up and beg for biscuits----"

"Stop!" shouted Doggie, white with sudden anger which shook him from
head to foot. He marched to the door, his green silk dressing-gown
flapping round his legs, and threw it wide open. "This is my house.
I'm sorry to have to ask you to get out of it."

Oliver looked intently for a few seconds into the flaming little dark
eyes. Then he said gravely:

"I'm a beast to have said that. I take it all back. Good-bye!"

"Good day to you," said Doggie; and when the door was shut he went and
threw himself, shaken, on the couch, hating Oliver and all his works
more than ever. Go about barefoot and swab decks! It was Bedlam
madness. Besides being dangerous to health, it would be excruciating
discomfort. And to be insulted for not grasping at such martyrdom. It
was intolerable.

Doggie stayed away from the Deanery all that day. On the morrow he
heard, to his relief, that Oliver had returned to London with the
unedifying Chipmunk. He took Peggy for a drive in the Rolls-Royce, and
told her of Oliver's high-handed methods. She sympathized. She said,
however:

"Oliver's a rough diamond."

"He's one of Nature's non-gentlemen," said Doggie.

She laughed and patted his arm. "Clever lad!" she said.

So Doggie's wounded vanity was healed. He confided to her some of his
difficulties as to the peacock and ivory room.

"Bear with the old paper for my sake," she said. "It's something you
can do for me. In the meanwhile, you and I can put our heads together
and design a topping scheme of decoration. It's not too early to start
in right now, for it'll take months and months to get the house just
as we want."

"You're the best girl in the world," said Doggie; "and the way you
understand me is simply wonderful."

"Dear old thing," smiled Peggy; "you're no great conundrum."

Happiness once more settled on Doggie Trevor. For the next two or
three days he and Peggy tackled the serious problem of the
reorganization of Denby Hall. Peggy had the large ideas of a limited
though acute brain, stimulated by social ambitions. When she became
mistress of Denby Hall, she intended to reverse the invisible boundary
that included it in Durdl