himself worthy, so far as any mere man could, of the
supreme gift of Tony's caring.

To-night, too, Dick played the game determinedly, but somehow he found
its consolation rather meager, as cold and remote as the sparkle of the
June stars, millions of miles away up there in the velvet sky, after
having sat by the side of the living, breathing Tony and, looking into
her happy eyes, known how little, how very little, he was in her
thoughts. She liked him to be near her, he knew, just as she liked her
roses to be fragrant, but neither the roses nor himself was a vital
necessity to her. She could do very well without either. That was the
pity of it.

At last he got up and went to bed. Falling into troubled sleep he dreamed
that he and Tony were wandering, hand in hand, in the Forest of Arden.
From afar off came the sound of music, airy voices chanting:

"When birds do sing, hey ding a ding
Sweet lovers love the spring."

And then somebody laughed mockingly, like Jacques, and somebody else,
clad in motley like Touchstone, but who seemed to speak in Dick's own
voice, murmured, "Ay, now am I in Arden, the more fool I."

And even with these words the forest vanished and Tony with it and the
dreamer was left alone on a steep and dusty road, lost and aching for the
missing touch of her hand.

But later he woke to the song of a thousand birds greeting the new day
with full-throated joy. And his heart, too, began to sing. For it was
indeed a new day--a day in which he should see Tony. He was irrationally
content. Of such is the kingdom of lad's love!

CHAPTER III

A GIRL WHO COULDN'T STOP BEING A PRINCESS

In the lee of a huge gray bowlder on the summit of Mount Tom sat
Philip Lambert and Carlotta Cressy. Below them stretched the wide
sweep of the river valley, amethyst and topaz and emerald, rich with
lush June verdure, soft shadowed, tranquil, in the late afternoon
sunshine. They had been silent for a little time but suddenly Carlotta
broke the silence.

"Phil, do you know why I brought you up here?" she asked. As she spoke
she drew a little closer to him and her hand touched his as softly as a
drifting feather or a blown cherry blossom might have touched it.

He turned to look at her. She was all in white like a lily, and otherwise
carried out the lily tradition of belonging obviously to the
non-toiling-and-spinning species, justifying the arrangement by looking
seraphically lovely in the fruits of the loo