[Pg 12]

Two years ago, dating from his graduation, Arthur had had a change of heart. He had been so dissipated as to give his family cause for the utmost anxiety. He had squandered money with both hands. He had had a regular time for lighting a cigarette, namely, when the one which he had been smoking was ready to be thrown away. He had been a keen hunter and fisherman. His chief use for domestic animals was to tease them and play tricks upon them. Then suddenly, out of this murky sky, had shone the clear light of all his subsequent behavior. He neither drank nor smoked; he neither slaughtered deer nor caught fish. He was never quarrelsome. He went much into the woods to photograph and observe. He became almost too quiet and self-effacing for a young man. He asked nothing of the world—not even to be let alone. He was patient under the fiendish ministrations of bores. He tamed birds and animals, spoiling them, as grandparents spoil grandchildren, until they gave him no peace, and were always running to him at inconvenient times because they were hungry, because they were[Pg 13] sleepy, because they thought somebody had been abusing them, or because they wished to be tickled and amused.

[Pg 13]

"He's like a peaceful lake," Maud had once said, "deep in the woods, where the wind never blows," and Eve had nodded and said: "True. And there's a woman at the bottom of it."

The sisters all believed that Arthur's change of heart could be traced to a woman. They differed only as to the kind.

"One of our kind," Mary thought, "who wouldn't have him."

"One of our kind," thought Maud, "who couldn't have him."

And the triplets thought differently every day. All except Gay, who happened to know.

"But," said Maud, "if we are to appeal to people of our own class, all mamma's and papa's old friends and our own will come to us, and that will be much, too much, like charity."

"Right," said Mary. "Don't tell me I haven't thought of that. I have. Applications from old friends will be politely refused."

"We can say," said Eve, "that we are very sorry, but every room is taken."

"But suppose they aren't?" objected Arthur.

Eve retorted sharply.

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