n him.

"I dare say I am." And he looked very sober. "Yes, I suppose it is all
right. Norris is one of those fellows who always knows what he wants,
and just plods along until he gets it."

* * * * *

"I said 'row'," Ellery remarked as he pushed the boat out from shore,
"but I meant 'loaf and invite the soul'. The sunlight is too delectable
for anything strenuous."

"But inviting the soul is always a solitary experience," objected
Madeline.

"Perhaps. But it is delightful to know that there is a sister soul also
inviting herself close at hand. I hope yours will accept the invitation.
'At home--the soul of Mr. Ellery Norris, to meet the soul of Miss
Madeline Elton'."

A soft flush rose over Madeline's face and she devoted herself to the
tiller ropes.

"P.S. Please come," Ellery went on with a laugh. "R.S.V.P."

"Aren't you 'flouting old ends'?" she smiled.

"I hoped I was flouting new beginnings," he answered soberly, and he
rowed languidly in a silence which Madeline rushed to fill.

"I've been thinking ever since last night about Dick," she said. "He is
so different from the buoyant creature of last summer. And it is only a
year."

"Well, perhaps this is a phase." He rested on his oars and looked at
her. "Dick is healthy, and joy is his normal state. He ought to be able
to recover from his malady."

"Sometimes I think it is permanent."

"I am almost afraid, too. But you see you can not get any bargains in
the department store of this world. You have to pay full price for
everything. If you want self-indulgence, you have to pay your health; if
you want health, you have to pay self-control. You never pay less than
the value of what you get, and you are often horribly over-charged for a
very inferior article. Now Dick wanted Lena Quincy. He bought a little
gratification, and paid--"

"What?"

"Everything he had," answered Norris abruptly. "Do you think I have not
watched his courage and ideals wither as if they had been frosted? He is
numb. 'Heavy as frost,' Wordsworth said, and that's the weightiest
figure he could find. It did not take her a month to begin to change
him. In three months she has him well started. Isn't it a pity that the
worse one of the two should have the controlling force? But Dick's very
volatility that we love has laid him open to this thing."

"I'm glad," said Madeline slowly, "that he has his political interest."

"Yes, he's going int