way. We would
have to begin at the beginning and lead up to kissing as a moral or
immoral act, before she could give it any serious attention. And when
she asked Bill to join the local league I interposed, lest the harmony
of the evening should be violated.

"We want your vote on another question," I said, and recounted the
events of the afternoon. She listened with apparent attention, playing
with a string of beads that hung round her neck. Long before I finished
I saw she was ready to speak.

"I'll go right in and ask her if she'll join!" she said.

"They've gone to Newark," said Mac.

"To-morrow, then."

"Well," said Bill. "Come up here to-morrow. He's coming in to tell us
some more. You'll meet him first and he can introduce you to his wife."

"That'll do first rate! I'm just crazy to get all the members I can."

The conversation rambled on irrelevantly after that, and we realized
that for Miss Fraenkel at least, the story of Mr. Carville's life was
not absorbingly attractive. We enjoyed her visit, as we always did, but
her influence, in her present preoccupation, was feverish and to a
certain slight degree disturbing.

The problem that presented itself when I retired that night was
immaterial, perhaps, but new. I wondered quietly in what manner Mr.
Carville would regard Miss Fraenkel. Doubtless I was over-exacting, but
I desired to discover, in our neighbour's attitude towards the lady,
some clue to his attitude towards us. I felt vaguely that his candour
was not at all a mere casual fit of communicativeness of which we "just
happened" to be the recipients. If this were the case, it would
infallibly appear in his manner towards our voteless friend. It would be
... but no. My vanity did not carry me that far. The vanity of a man of
forty is generally a steed broken to harness; it will not prance far
into the unknown. I decided to wait until Mr. Carville decided the
matter for himself.

* * * * *

The spectacle, while I was shaving next morning, of Mr. Carville
proceeding sedately down Van Diemen's Avenue with his children, gave a
fresh vagueness to his image in my mind. It was as though a hand had
been passed over the picture, smudging the outlines and rendering the
whole thing of dubious value. A model father! In my bewilderment I
nearly cut myself. And yet, supposing, as I had been supposing, that Mr.
Carville had set out with the definite object of contrasting himself
v