"Oh, did you like it? We were very busy up there all the morning, Aunt

Isabelle and I and Susan Jenks."

"I felt like thanking Susan Jenks for the big bath towels; they seemed

to add the final perfect touch."

She laughed and repeated his remark to Aunt Isabelle.

"Think of his being grateful for bath towels, Aunt Isabelle."

After his presentation to Aunt Isabelle, he said, smiling: "And there was another touch--the big gray pussy cat. She was in the

window-seat, and when I sat down to look at the lights, she tucked her

head under my hand and sang to me."

"Pittiwitz? Oh, Aunt Isabelle, we left Pittiwitz up there. She

claims your room as hers," she explained to Roger. "We've had her for

years. And she was always there with father, and then with Constance

and me. If she's a bother, just put her on the back stairs and she

will come down."

"But she isn't a bother. It is very pleasant to have something alive

to bear me company."

The moment that his remark was made he was afraid that she might

interpret it as a plea for companionship. And he had no right----

What earthly right had he to expect to enter this charmed circle?

Susan Jenks came in with her arms full of wraps. "Mr. Porter's

coming," she said, "and it's eight o'clock now."

"We are going out----" Mary was interested to note that her lodger had

taken Aunt Isabelle's wrap, and was putting her into it without

self-consciousness.

Her own wrap was of a shimmering gray-green velvet which matched her

eyes, and there was a collar of dark fur.

"It's a pretty thing," Roger said, as he held it for her. "It's like

the sea in a mist."

She flashed a quick glance at him. "I like that," she said in her

straightforward way. "It is lovely. Aunt Frances brought it to me

last year from Paris. Whenever you see me wear anything that is

particularly nice, you'll know that it came from Aunt Frances--Aunt

Isabelle's sister. She's the rich member of the family. And all the

rest of us are as poor as poverty."

Outside a motor horn brayed. Then Porter Bigelow came in--a perfectly

put together young man, groomed, tailored, outfitted according to the

mode.

"Are you ready, Contrary Mary?" he said, then saw Roger and stopped.

Porter was a gentleman, so his manner to Roger Poole showed no hint of

what he thought of lodgers in general, and this one in particular. He

shook hands and said a few pleasant and perfunctory things. Personally

he thought the man looked down and out. But no one could tell what

Mary might think. Mary's standards were those of the dreamer and the

star gazer. What she was seeking she would never find in a Mere Man.

The danger lay however, in the fact that she might mistakenly hang her

affections about the neck of some earth-bound Object and call it an

Ideal.




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