"I wouldn't interrupt him for worlds, Major," laughed Phoebe as she arose

from her chair. "I'm going to slip by the drawing-room and hurry down to

that meeting of the Civic Improvement Association from which I hope to

get at least a half column. Andrew'll go in and see to them."

"Never!" answered Andrew promptly with a smile. "I'm going to beat a

retreat and walk down with you. The major must assume that

responsibility. Good-by!" And in a moment they had both made their

escape, to the major's vast amusement.

For the time being the music in the drawing-room had stopped and David

and Caroline were deep in an animated conversation.

"The trouble about it is that I am about to have my light put out," David

was complaining as he sat on the piano-stool, glaring at a vase of

unoffending roses on a table. "Being a ray of sunshine around the house

for a sick poet is no job for a runabout child like me."

"But he's so much better now, David, that I should think you would be

perfectly happy. Though of course you are still a little uneasy about

him." As Caroline Darrah spoke she swayed the long-stemmed rose she held

in her hand and tipped it against one of its mates in the vase.

"Uneasy, nothing! There's not a thing in the world the matter with him;

ribs are all in commission and his collar-bone hitched on again. It's

just a case of moonie sulks with him. He never was the real glad boy, but

now he runs entirely to poetry and gloom. He won't go anywhere but over

here to chew book-rags with the major or to read goo to Phoebe, which she

passes on to you. Wish I'd let him die in the swamps; chasing away to

Panama for him was my mistake, I see." And David ruffled a young rose

that drooped confidingly over toward him.

"Why did he ever go to Panama? Why does he build bridges and things?

Other people like you and me can do that sort of thing; but he--," and

Caroline Darrah raised her eyes full of naive questioning.

"Heavens, woman, poetry never in the world would grub-stake six feet of

husky man! But that's just like you and Phoebe and all the other women.

You would like to feed me to the alligators, but the poet must sit in the

shade and chew eggs and grape juice. You trample on my feelings, child,"

and David sighed plaintively.

Caroline eyed him a moment across the rose she held to her lips, then

laughed delightedly.

"Indeed, indeed, I couldn't stand losing you, David, nor could Phoebe.

Don't imagine it!" And Caroline confessed her affection for him with the

naïveté with which a child offers a flower.




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