"You needn't make it a family affair," I protested. "I have only seen the girl once."

But Edith smiled. "I know what I know," she said. "How extravagant of you to send Bobby that enormous hobby-horse!"

"The boy has to learn to ride sometime. In four years he can have a pony, and I'm going to see that he has it. He'll be eight by that time."

Edith laughed.

"In four years!" she said, "Why, in four years you'll—" then she stopped.

"I'll what?" I demanded, blocking the door to the library.

"You'll be forty, Jack, and it's a mighty unattractive man who gets past forty without being sought and won by some woman. You'll be buying—"

"I will be thirty-nine," I said with dignity, "and as far as being sought and won goes, I am so overwhelmed by Fred's misery that I don't intend to marry at all. If I do—if I do—it will be to some girl who turns and runs the other way every time she sees me."

"The oldest trick in the box," Edith scoffed. "What's that thing Fred's always quoting: 'A woman is like a shadow; follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows.'"

"Upon my word!" I said indignantly. "And you are a woman!"

"I'm different," she retorted. "I'm only a wife and mother."

In the library Fred got up from his desk and gathered up his papers. "I can't think with you two whispering there," he said, "I'm going to the den."

As he slammed the door into his workroom Edith picked up her skirts and scuttled after him.

"How dare you run away like that?" she called. "You promised me—" The door closed behind her.

I went over and spoke through the panels.

"'Follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows'—oh, wife and mother!" I called.

"For Heaven's sake, Edith," Fred's voice rose irritably. "If you and Jack are going to talk all evening, go and sit on his knee and let me alone. The way you two flirt under my nose is a scandal. Do you hear that, Jack?"

"Good night, Edith," I called, "I have left you a kiss on the upper 

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