ly in an
extremely doubtful light. All I can say is, pick out the best fellow
you know, the one you'd rather have to count on, at a pinch, than
another, the one you'd swear to for doing the straight thing and
holding his tongue about it--then give him five feet eleven and a half
inches and blue eyes and you've Roger. This is rather a poor dodge at
character drawing: I know a competent author would never throw
himself on your mercy so.

But then, what does it matter? When the members of a man's own
household, who have known him from boyhood, fail to understand him and
take a satiric pleasure in looking at what he does from the nastiest
possible standpoint (none the less nasty because it is a logically
possible standpoint) why should I, a confessed amateur, hope to make
Roger clear to you if you are determined to misjudge him?

I find myself still a little sore on this point: unnecessarily so, you
may be thinking. But you never had to explain it to the family in
Boston, you see--and Sarah. I had. I can see her cold, grey-green eyes
to this hour, her white starched shirt and her sharp steel belt
buckle--ugh! It should be illegal, in a Republic where there are so
many less sensible laws, for any woman to be so ostentatiously
unattractive....

"Margarita," I said once, very soon after I had met her, "were you
ever caught by the tide on those first rocks? See how it has crept up
and cut them off."

"Oh yes, often," she answered, "the first night Roger ever came here,
for once. Do you not remember, I told you how he carried the blueberry
pie and the milk out there and we ate them? He was so hungry! It was
then that he looked at me so----"

"Blueberry pie," I said hastily, "is very messy, I think, though
undoubtedly good. It makes one's mouth so black."

"I know," she murmured reminiscently, "I told Roger that his mouth was
stained and I laughed at him. And then he said that mine was worse,
because there was some on my chin--why do you scowl so, Jerry? Is that
a wrong thing to tell?"

"No, no," I assured her, "of course not."

"I am glad," she said comfortably, "it is very strange that I cannot
see the difference, myself. How do you see, Jerry? But I was telling
you about the tide, was I not? When Roger said that about my mouth I
tried to get the stain off, but I could not, and then Roger said it
was no use trying any more and he kissed me."

Here Margarita paused and patted my hand, tapping each finger nail
lightl