he
consideration of serious minds. But there was a dreamy light in her
eyes, and the smile on her lips, while it may not have been expressive
of serious consideration, was not wholly condemnatory. The carnivorous
orchid was having a good day and keeping its own counsel as a sensible
orchid expectant of continued patronage should do.

There was an obviously somber tinge to Mr. Dyke's color scheme on the
following afternoon, tending to an over-employment of black, when an
impressive and noiseless roadster purred its way to the curb, there
discharging a quite superb specimen of manhood in glorious raiment. The
motorist paused to regard with unfeigned surprise the design of the
house front. Presently he recovered sufficiently to ask:

"Could you tell me if Miss Leffingwell lives here?"

The painter turned upon his precarious plank so sharply that he was all
but precipitated into the area. "_Who_?" he said.

"Miss Leffingwell."

"You don't mean Mrs. Leffingwell?" queried the aerial operator in a
strained tone.

"No; I don't. I mean Miss Anne Leffingwell."

The painter flourished the implement of his trade to the peril of the
immaculate garments below. "Toora-loo!" he warbled.

"I beg your pardon," said the new arrival.

"I said 'Toora-loo.' It's a Patagonian expression signifying
satisfaction and relief; sort of I-thought-so-all-the-time effect."

"You seem a rather unusual and learned sort of house painter," reflected
the stalwart Adonis. "Is that Patagonian art?"

"Symbolism. It represents hope struggling upward from the oppression of
doubt and despair. That," he added, splashing in a prodigal streak of
whooping scarlet, "is resurgent joy surmounting the misty
mountain-tops of--"

The opening door below him cut short the disquisition.

"Reg!" cried the tenant breathlessly. Straight into the big young man's
ready arms she dived, and the petrified and stricken occupant of the
dizzy plank heard her muffled voice quaver: "Wh--wh--wh--why didn't you
come before?"

To which the young giant responded in gallingly protective tones: "You
little idiot!"

The door closed after them. Martin Dyke, amateur house painter,
continued blindly to bedeck the face of a ruinous world with radiant
hues. After interminable hours (as he reckoned the fifteen elapsed
minutes) the tenant escorted her visitor to the door and stood watching
him as the powerful and unassertive motor departed. Dazedly the artist
descended from his pla