across a summer sky. When she referred to Phil again, it was with a
detachment at which he marveled. If he had not loved her so deeply and
if his happiness at her return had been less complete, he should have
thought her heartless. She had called herself "different"; and she was,
indeed, different in ways that defied his poor powers of analysis. She
was a mystifying creature. Her assurance, her indifference toward the
world in general, the cool fashion in which she had touched off on her
pretty fingers the chief incidents of her life did not stagger him so
much as they fascinated him. She was of his own blood, and yet it was
almost another language that she spoke.

She had brought down a box of bon-bons which she now remembered and
urged him to try, moving fitfully about the room and poking at the box
from time to time absently, while he volunteered information touching
old friends. Her interest in local history was apparently the slightest:
he might have been talking of the Gauls in the time of Caesar for all the
interest she manifested in her contemporaries and their fortunes. He
finally mentioned with dogged daring the Bartletts whom she had known
well; they had been exceedingly kind to Phil, he said. Her manner was so
provokingly indifferent that he was at the point of bringing Kirkwood
into the picture in a last effort to shatter her unconcern. She bit a
bon-bon in two, made a grimace of dissatisfaction, and tossed the
remaining half into the fire.

"Oh, the Bartlett girls! Let me see, which was the musical one--Rose or
Nan?"

"Rose. Nan's literary. They're fine women, and they've been a mighty big
help to Phil," he persisted.

"Very nice of them, I'm sure," she said, yawning.

The yawn reminded her that she was sleepy, and without prelude she
kissed him, asked the breakfast hour, and went up to bed.

He followed to make sure that she had what she needed, surveyed the
trunks that loomed in the hall like a mountain range, and went below to
commune with the fire.

As he reviewed the situation, to the accompaniment of her quick, light
patter on the guest-room floor, he was unable to key himself to a note
of tragedy. The comedy of life had never been wasted on him, and it was,
after all, a stupendous joke that Lois should have come back almost as
tranquilly as though she had been away for a week's visit. The longer he
brooded the more it tickled him. She either was incapable of
comprehending the problems invo