wedding present to us as
that would be. And now I'm wondering ... Wallace, I don't suppose it
would strike you that there would be anything--shady about doing a thing
like that."

"Shady!" He was, for a moment, deeply affronted by the mere suggestion.
Then, remembering her total ignorance of all such matters, he smiled at
her. "My dear Mary, do you think--leaving my rectitude aside--that I'd
have referred you to Rodney Aldrich if I'd felt that there was anything
questionable about it?"

"I know," she conceded. "And Martin Whitney would feel the same way. And
father, I suppose, and Rush. Everybody we know. Yet I was wondering
whether I'd say anything to Tony about it. I've decided I will, but I'm
going to ask you not to, nor to anybody else, until I've talked to him.
I'd like it left--altogether to him, you see."

He agreed, rather blankly to this. Presently she went on:

"I'm glad he's a real genius, not just a fragment of one as so many of
them are. There's something--robust about him. And since that's so, I
don't believe we'll do him any real harm; we--advantage-snatchers, you
know. That's so very largely how we live, we nice people (it's why we're
able to be nice, of course)--that we get perfectly blind to it. But he's
so strong, and he can see in so deep, that I guess he's safe. That's the
belief I have to go on, anyhow."

She sprang up and gave him another pat upon the shoulder. "He'll be
getting here in a few minutes, I suspect. Father telephoned that he and
Paula were going to bring him down as soon as his rehearsal was over. I'm
going up now to try to make my peace with Aunt Lucile."

After lunch she told the family that she had matters to talk over with
Tony and meant to take him for a walk. His father and mother expected
them to drop in at their house about five and the intervening two hours
would give them just about time to "cover the ground." She was openly
laughing at her own pretense at being matter-of-fact.

It was pretty hot for walking, her father thought. Why not let Pete drive
them around a while in the car? Or take the small car and drive herself?
But she was feeling pedestrian, she said, and, anyhow, the topic she had
in mind couldn't be discussed in a motor-car. They'd go to Lincoln Park
and stroll around in the shade.

"And if we get tired," she added with a flicker, in response to her
aunt's movement of protest, "we can squeeze in among the other couples on
some grassy bank.--Oh, Aunt