ters of nervous bay horses stirring in the stalls. The
various men, smoking and spitting there in the Sunday afternoon
leisure, knew Martie and nodded to her; knew who her companion was.

Martie and Rodney walked down South California Street, into the town's
nicest quarter, and passed the old-fashioned wooden houses, set far
back in bare gardens: the Wests' with its wooden palings; the Clifford
Frosts', with a hooded baby carriage near the side door; and the senior
Frosts', a dark red house shut in by a dark red fence. The Barkers'
house was the last in the row, rambling, ugly, decorated with knobs and
triangles of wood, with many porches, with coloured glass frames on its
narrow windows, yet imposing withal, because of its great size and the
great trees about it. Martie had not been there since her childhood, in
the days before Malcolm Monroe's attitude on the sewer and
street-lighting questions had antagonized his neighbours, in the days
when Mrs. Frost and Mrs. Parker still exchanged occasional calls with
Martie's mother.

The girl found strangely thrilling Rodney's familiarity here. He
crossed the porch, opened the unlocked front door, and led Martie
through a large, over-furnished hall and a large, stately drawing room.
The rugs, lamps, chairs, and tables all belonged to entirely different
periods, some were Mission oak, some cherry upholstered in rich
brocade; there was a little mahogany, some maple, even a single
handsome square chair of teakwood from the Orient. On the walls there
were large crayon portraits made from photographs of the girls, and
there were cushions everywhere, some of fringed leather, some of satin
painted or embroidered, some of cigar ribbons of clear yellow silk,
some with college pennants flaunting across them.

Beyond this room was another large one, looking out on the lawn and the
shabby willows at the side of the house. Into this room the more
favoured one had been casting off its abandoned fineries for many
years. There were more rugs, pillows, lamps, and chairs in here, but it
was all more shabby, and the effect was pleasanter and softer. Ida's
tea table stood by the hearth, with innovations such as a silver
tea-ball, and a porcelain cracker jar decorated with a rich design in
the minutely cut and shellacked details of postage stamps. A fire
winked sleepily behind the polished steel bars of the grate, the
western window was full of potted begonias and ferns, the air was close
and pl