per color. He fell into that mood of blessed silence that, as a
rule, comes only when one is solitary.

As they rounded at the dock he came back to himself with a sudden wonder
if she had missed the titillation of Dick's chatter, for she had been as
silent as he.

"I'm afraid I have been very dull. I enjoyed myself so much that I
forgot to try to amuse you."

"It's been a heavenly sail, exactly to match the day," Madeline answered
with a deep contented sigh that filled him with delight. "I was this
moment thinking what a comfort it was to know you well enough so that I
didn't have to talk. It's a test of comradeship, isn't it?"

As they smiled at each other, his heart leaped with the consciousness of
a bond below the surface.

He treasured this crumb of her kindness, not because she was niggardly,
but because there was little that belonged to him and to him alone.
Sometimes, in the rush and roar of the office, came the memory of her
eyes and her voice of assurance.

"What will our comradeship be like, when--when she is Dick's wife?" he
questioned himself, and then fell to work with fury.

Thus the delightful summer died into the past; there came a winter only
less good, with its dinners and dances, with quiet fireside evenings,
and yet another summer of the same close friendship that began to take
on the semblance of a permanent thing in life, all the richer as
experience grew deeper and knowledge wider and the best things dearer.

Whether they read or sang or discussed, though the world saw little
done, these three young people had the inestimable happiness of knowing
one another.

CHAPTER VI

JEWEL WEED

Along the wide straight street of the city surged the usual shopping
crowd. Largely petticoated was it, for o'daytimes man must be busy at
his office that woman may have this privilege of going shopping. Surely
there is no other stream in the wide world that is so monotonous as this
human never-ending current. The same types, the same clothes, the same
subjects of conversation in the fragments that catch the ear. And seldom
does one see a face that looks even cheerful, much less happy,--all
intent on matching ribbons.

"The world is too much with us; late and soon;
Getting and spending we lay waste our powers."

Thus might they cry aloud, if they were condemned to proclaim their
sins, like the long banner of bat-like souls that Dante saw passing in
similar fashion beneath his eye.

A