praise and to give off its perfume like a flower. 

 But the idea of her working with him day after day, helping the development of the paper which had grown as dear as a child to him, was so desirable that he did not dare to contemplate it unless it promised realization. 

 “Oh,” he broke out, “you won’t really do it. Your family will object, or something. Probably when I go away to-night, I shall never see you again.” 

 “You are still going away to-night?” 

 “I must.” 

 She looked at him and slowly shook her head, as a mother shakes her head at the foolish plans of a child. 

 “I thought I was going,” he said, weakly. 

 “Why?” 

 He groaned, but did not answer. 

 She thought, “Oh, dear, I wish when men want to be comforted they would not make a girl spend so much time and energy getting them to say that they do want it.” Aloud she said: 

 “You must tell me what’s the matter.” 

 “It’s a long story.” 

 “We have all afternoon.” 

 “That’s it—we haven’t all eternity.” 

 “Oh, eternity,” said Crystal, dismissing it with the Cord wave of the hand. “Who wants eternity? ‘Since we must die how bright the starry track,’ you know.” 

 “No; what is that?” 

 “I don’t remember.” 

 “Oh.” 

 After this meeting of minds they drove for some time in silence. Ben was seeing a new aspect of Newport—bare, rugged country, sandy roads, a sudden high rock jutting out toward the sea, a rock on which tradition asserts that Bishop Berkeley once sat and considered the illusion of matter. They stopped at length at the edge of a sandy beach. Crystal parked her car neatly with a sharp turn of the wheel, and got out. 

 “There’s a tea basket,” she called 

 Prev. P 36/53 next