*

Pritchard smoked upon the dock in the light of an arc-lamp. A vision, smiling and rosy, swept out of the darkness, and said:

"Too bad we didn't have better luck!"

"I beg your pardon," said Pritchard, "you're not Miss Gay, but I haven't had the pleasure of being presented to Miss Lee or Miss Phyllis."

The vision chuckled and beat a swift, giggling retreat to a dark spot among the pines, where other giggles awaited her.

A second vision came.

"Too bad we didn't have better luck!"

Pritchard smiled gravely into the vision's eyes, and said in so low a voice that only she could hear:

"Bad luck? I have learned to love you with all my heart and soul."

Silence. An answering whisper.

"How did you know me?"

"How? Because my heart says here is the only girl in all the world—see how different, how more beautiful and gentle she is than all other girls."

"But I'm not Gay—I'm Phyllis."

"If you are Phyllis," he whispered, "then you never were Gay."

She laughed softly.

"I am Gay."

"Why tell me? I know. Am I forgiven?"

"There is nothing," she said swiftly, "to forgive," and she fled swiftly.

To her sisters waiting among the pines she gave explanation.

"Of course, he knew me."

"How?"

"Why, he said there couldn't be any doubt; he said I was so very much better-looking than any sister of mine could possibly be."

Forthwith Lee pinioned Gay's arms and Phyllis pulled her ears for her.

Mr. Pritchard paced the dock, offering rings of Cuban incense to the stars.

*

From Play House came the sounds which men make when they play cards and do not care whether they win or lose.

Maud was in her office, adding a column of figures which the grocer had sent in. The triplets, linked arm in arm, joined her. Arthur came, and Eve and Mary.

They agreed that they were very tired and ready for bed.

"It's going to be a success, anyway," said Mary. "That seems certain."

"We must have the plumber up," said Eve; "the laundry boiler has sprung a leak. Who's that in your pocket, Arthur?"

"Uncas. He came in exhausted after a long day in the woods. Something unusual happened to him. I know, because he tried so very hard to tell me all about it just before he went to sleep, and of course he couldn't quite make me understand. I think he was trying to warn me of something—trying to tell me to keep my eyes peeled."

The family laughed. Arthur was always so absurd about his pets. All laughed except Gay. She, in a dark corner, like the rose in the poem, blushed unseen.

Chapter XI

*

When their week was up, Mr. Langham's guests, Messrs. O'Malley, Alston, and Cox, felt obliged to go where income called them. Renier, however, who had only been at work a year, decided that he did not like his job, and would try for another in the fall. Lee delivered herself of the stern opinion that a rolling stone gathers no moss, and Renier answered that his late uncle had been a fair-to-middling moss gatherer, and that to have more than one such in a given family was a sign of low tastes. "I have a little money of my own," he said darkly, "and, what's more, I have a little hunch." To his face Lee upbraided him for his lack of ambition and his lack of elegance, but behind his back she smiled secretly. She was well pleased with herself. It had only taken him three days to get so that he knew her when he saw her, and for a young man of average intellect and eyesight that was almost a record.