ays had been,
peculiar. "How about yourself?" he replied.

Without answering, Hawkins lifted his shoulders and threw out his
hands. Then they were both called to come and help.

Joe had the sole company of Miss Penny on the return trip. She was
inclined to be quiet and answered his polite attempts with
monosyllables. He wondered if by chance he might be being remiss in
the customs of such an occasion, but he did not care much. The three
on the back seat had lapsed into a strange silence that seemed out of
place, like death in a boiler shop, and when they finally reached the
city limits and passed beneath the glare of the first corner light, he
took a look behind him and caught Miss Ardle kissing the imperious
Glotch. He turned and looked at Miss Penny. She sat with her hands in
her lap, looking demurely at them.

He delivered them all to their respective destinations. And then,
having the load of baskets and picnic utensils in the car, he returned
to Lytle Street to see that they were properly handed over. He passed
Hawkins' roadster as he turned the corner into Lytle Street and
wondered if he were too late.

But as he staggered up the walk with the baskets, Myrtle came to meet
him at the top of the steps and showed him where to put them. And as
he turned and would have gone, she stopped him with a soft word. On
the top step she came and took hold of him by both elbows and looked
up into his face with eyes that were swimming with sweetness. He
gulped and was bitterly sorry for his folly. He started to speak, when
she reached up with her hand and softly passed it across his forehead;
the touch of it was as exquisite and as transient as a dream. He felt
unmentionable depths.

"Hope you're feeling better," she murmured.

"Why?" he managed to ask. And then he remembered he had told her he
had been unwell Thursday which accounted for his absence. And then:
"Oh, I do. Much. All right now." An errant moonbeam came straggling in
between a break in the screen of vines and lighted up her face,
looking up into his, flooding it with a sort of holy wistfulness.
Softly she moved away, out of the light.

An hour later he clambered into his car and drove away.

CHAPTER XIV

What a curious question, that of Hawkins, "How did you come to get
mixed up in this crowd?" And the inane response he had made to the
counter as though it all were a mystery too vast for solution. Oh,
well, Hawkins was a queer bird, inexpressive