less exclusive. Most of the houses in St. Etienne,
like their own, had no property dividing line, but lawn melted into lawn
with a park-like openness that hinted at communistic kindliness. This
had its disadvantages in lack of privacy, and hence it was that in spite
of quite an extensive demesne, Lena found in her own garden no spot
absolutely hidden from curious eyes of passers, except in one thicket of
trees and shrubbery over near the Early boundary. Here there was
seclusion, and here, therefore, young Mrs. Percival had her hammock and
her group of chairs and tables; and here she spent long indolent
afternoons in sleepy reading and sleepier dreaming, which was only less
agreeable than the social triumphs of which she dreamed. And yet she
often found herself weary of nothing, and wished she had some one
exactly to her taste to keep her company and talk to her about little
things in that "fool's paradise of laziness" where, it is said, Satan is
entertainer in chief. Once in a while, on his brief home-stays, Mr.
Early illuminated her retreat with his presence.

Toward the middle of the summer, certain business interests called Dick
to North Dakota, and then life was duller than ever.

Therefore it was a not wholly unwelcome diversion when, late on an
August afternoon, she saw the thick laurels of the hedge near her part a
little and the form of Ram Juna stand in the cleft, snowy white from
turban to slippers save for the gleaming ruby and the polished bronze
face. He looked like the day itself, glowing, sultry, indolent.

"Pardon me, dear lady," he said, "that through the bush I spied you. I
was solitary. You are solitary. The heat suits not with the severer
thought. The weak body refuses to yield to the commands of mind. I fail
to write; and perhaps you fail to read."

"I guess your thinking is harder work than my reading. Won't you come
over and sit down?" said Lena cordially.

"Then you, like me, would welcome companionship?"

"Yes. Isn't this a nice shady place?" Lena answered. "The maid is just
bringing me some iced drinks, and I dare say they'll taste good to you
if you have been trying to write that wonderful book of yours in all
this blaze."

The Hindu pushed the hedge still farther asunder and swept with a sigh
of content over to a cushioned reclining chair.

"If one's heart were set on the things that fade, what greater
satisfaction? Shadow, deep shadow from the heat, cool drafts, the voice
of a fair