if I continued," she answered
hastily, biting her lip. She had been about to remark that her father
would miss her, nevertheless--but such personal platitudes are not
always in good taste. Seeing that she was disinclined to finish her
sentence, he did not urge her; and a few minutes later he drew up his
horses before a rather imposing house.

"I shall not be gone a minute, I think," he said, as he sprang out and
was about to attach the reins to the post.

"Let me hold them, please," said Ruth, eagerly stretching forth a hand.

He placed them in her hand with a smile, and turned in at the gateway.

He had been in the house about five minutes when she saw him come out
hastily. His hat was pulled down over his brows, which were gathered
in an unmistakable frown. At the moment when he slammed the gate
behind him, a stout woman hurrying along the sidewalk accosted him
breathlessly.

He waited stolidly with his foot on the carriage-step till she came up.

"So sorry I had to go out!" she burst forth. "How did you find my
husband? What do you think of him?"

"Madame," he replied shortly, "since you ask, I think your husband is
little short of an idiot!"

Ruth felt herself flush as she heard.

The woman looked at him in consternation.

"What is the matter?" she asked.

"Matter? Mayonnaise is the matter. If a man with a weak stomach like
his cannot resist gorging himself with things he has been strictly
prohibited from touching, he had better proclaim himself irresponsible
and be done. It is nonsense to call me in when he persists in cutting up
such antics. Good-afternoon."

And abruptly raising his hat, he sprang in beside Ruth, taking the reins
from her without a word.

She felt very meek and small beside the evidently exasperated physician.
He seemed to forget her presence entirely, and she had too much tact
to break the silence of an angry man. In nine cases out of ten, the
explosion is bound to take place; but woe to him who lights the powder!

They were now driving northeast toward the quarter known as North Beach.
The sweet, fresh breeze in the western heights toward Golden Gate is
here charged with odors redolent of anything but the "shores of Araby
the blest."

Kemp finally gave vent to his feelings.

"Some men," he said deliberately, as if laying down an axiom, "have no
more conception of the dignity of controlled appetites than savages.
Here is one who could not withstand anything savory to eat, to