No more was said; I think that my manner of taking Juno's news had been perfectly successful in disappointing her. John's resignation, if it had really occurred, did certainly follow very close upon the arrival of Hortense; but I had spoken one true thought in intimating that I doubted if it was due to the influence of Miss Rieppe. It seemed to me to the highest degree unlikely that the boy in his present state of feeling would do anything he did not wish to do because his ladylove happened to wish it—except marry her! There was apparently no doubt that he would do that. Did she want him, poverty and all? Was she, even now, with eyes open, deliberately taking her last farewell days of automobiles and of steam yachts? That voice of hers, that rich summons, with its quiet certainty of power, sounded in my memory. "John," she had called to him from the automobile; and thus John had gone away in it, wedged in among Charley and the fat cushions and all the money and glass eyes. And now he had resigned from the Custom House! Yes, that was, whatever it signified, truly amazing—if true.

So I continued to ponder quite uselessly, until the up-country bride aroused me. She, it appeared, had been greatly carried away by the beauty of Live Oaks, and was making her David take her there again this morning; and she was asking me didn't I hope we shouldn't get stuck? The people had got stuck yesterday, three whole hours, right on a bank in the river; and wasn't it a sin and a shame to run a boat with ever so many passengers aground? By the doctrine of chances, I informed her, we had every right to hope for better luck to-day; and, with the assurance of how much my felicity was increased by the prospect of having her and David as company during the expedition, I betook myself meanwhile to my own affairs, which meant chiefly a call at the Exchange to inquire for Eliza La Heu, and a visit to the post-office before starting upon a several hours' absence.

A few steps from our front door I came upon John Mayrant, and saw at once too plainly that no ease had come to his spirit during the hours since the bridge. He was just emerging from an adjacent house.

"And have you resigned?" I asked him.

"Yes. That's done. You haven't seen Miss Rieppe this morning?"

"Why, she's surely not boarding with Mrs. Trevise?"

"No; stopping here with her old friend, Mrs. Cornerly." He indicated the door he had come from. "Of course, you wouldn't be likely to see her pass!" And with that he was gone.

That he was greatly stirred up by something there could be no doubt; never before had I seen him so abrupt; it seemed clear that anger had taken the place of despondency, or whatever had been his previous mood; and by the time I reached the post-office I had already imagined and dismissed the absurd theory that John was jealous of Charley, had resigned from the Custom House as a first step toward breaking his engagement, and had rung Mrs. Cornerly's bell at this early hour with the purpose of informing his lady-love that all was over between them. Jealousy would not be likely to produce this set of manifestations in young, foolish John; and I may say here at once, what I somewhat later learned, that the boy had come with precisely the opposite purpose, namely, to repeat and reenforce his steadfast constancy, and that it was something far removed from jealousy which had spurred him to this.