" he answered in his quiet way.

Anthea didn't speak but, once again, the curl of her lip was eloquent.

"And so," he went on, quite unabashed, "when I behold Happiness riding
astride the full moon, I shall just reach up, in the most natural manner
in the world, and--take it down, that it may abide with me, world
without end."

"Do you think you will be tall enough?"

"We shall see,--when the time comes."

"I think it's all very ridiculous!" said Anthea.

"Why then--suppose you play for me, that same, plaintive piece you were
playing as I came in,--something of Grieg's I think it was,--will you,
Miss Anthea?"

She was on the point of refusing, then, as if moved by some capricious
whim, she crossed to the piano, and dashed into the riotous music of a
Polish Dance. As the wild notes leapt beneath her quick, brown fingers,
Bellew, seated near-by, kept his eyes upon the great, red rose in her
hair, that nodded slyly at him with her every movement. And surely, in
all the world, there had never bloomed a more tantalizing, more wantonly
provoking rose than this! Wherefore Bellew, very wisely, turned his eyes
from its glowing temptation. Doubtless observing which, the rose, in
evident desperation, nodded, and swayed, until, it had fairly nodded
itself from its sweet resting-place, and, falling to the floor, lay
within Bellew's reach. Whereupon, he promptly stooped, and picked it up,
and,--even as, with a last, crashing chord, Anthea ceased playing, and
turned, in that same moment he dropped it deftly into his coat pocket.

"Oh! by the way, Mr. Bellew," she said, speaking as if the idea had but
just entered her mind, "what do you intend to do about--all your
furniture?"

"Do about it?" he repeated, settling the rose carefully in a corner of
his pocket where it would not be crushed by his pipe.

"I mean--where would you like it--stored until you can send, and have
it--taken away?"

"Well,--I--er--rather thought of keeping it--where it was if you didn't
mind."

"I'm afraid that will be--impossible, Mr. Bellew."

"Why then the barn will be an excellent place for it, I don't suppose
the rats and mice will do it any real harm, and as for the damp, and
the dust--"

"Oh! you know what I mean!" exclaimed Anthea, beginning to tap the floor
impatiently with her foot. "Of course we can't go on using the things
now that they are your property, it--wouldn't be--right."

"Very well," he nodded, his fingers questing anxiousl