r stairway."

CHAPTER II

THE COTE IN THE CLOUDS

As Eveley had prophesied, what her carpenters lacked in experience and
skill was more than compensated by their ambition and their eagerness to
please. On Saturday afternoon her back yard was a veritable bee-hive of
industry. The foundation was in readiness for the handiwork of love, for
Burton Raines, feeling that he could not concentrate on business in such
sentimental environs, explained patiently that he was only an ordinary
married man and that love rhapsodies to the tune of temperamental
hammering upset him. So he had taken the morning off from his own
business, to lay the foundation for the rustic stairway.

Nolan Inglish, listed first because he was always listed first with
Eveley, appeared at eleven o'clock, having explained to the lofty members
of the law firm of which he was a junior assistant, that serious family
matters required his attention. This enabled him to have the two
bottom-most steps of the stairway, comprising his portion, erected and
ready for inspection by the time Eveley arrived home from her work. He
said he had felt it would be lonely for her to sit around by herself
while everybody else worked for her, and having provided against that
exigency by doing his labor in advance, he claimed the privilege of
officiating as entertainer-in-chief for the entire afternoon.

Arnold Bender appeared next, accompanied by Kitty Lampton, one of
Eveley's pet and particular friends. Although Kitty was extremely
generous in proffering the services of her friend in behalf of Eveley's
stairway, she frankly stated that she was not willing to expose any
innocent young man of her possession to the wiles and smiles of her
attractive friend, without herself on hand to counteract any untoward
influence.

Captain Hardin and Lieutenant Ames came together with striking military
eclat, accompanied, as became their rank, by two alert enlisted men.
After introducing their enlisted men in the curt official manner of the
army and having set them grandly to work on the rustic stairway, Captain
Hardin and Lieutenant Ames immediately took up a social position in the
tiny rose-bowered pergola, with Eveley and Kitty and Nolan and the
lemonade.

A little later, Jimmy Weaver rattled up in his small striped gaudy car,
followed presently by Dick Fairwether on a noisy motorcycle. They took
out their personal sets of tools from private recesses of their machines
and plun