away if he sends it; that I've already shipped the
thing to him; that I don't want it; that it's unbecoming to my house--he
won't listen. Just says he's sent his cheque and we'll please change the
subject."

"Well, you don't have to _cash_ his cheque, do you?" she inquired
gravely.

"I know that," Teddy scoffed. "But if I don't, he'll send it in my name,
in cash, to some charity, and that'll be all the same in the final
addition. He's so confoundedly resourceful, you can't think around him."

"No, you can't," she agreed. "That's one of the wonderful things about
him. He thinks in his own terms, in terms of you or me, or the janitor,
or the President. He isn't just himself, he's everybody."

"He isn't thinking in terms of _me_," Teddy complained.

She shook her head. "No," she smiled wisely, "he's thinking in terms of
himself, this time, and we aren't big enough to see that, too, and
understand."

They had reached the entrance to the Park and crossed the already
crowded Plaza to its quieter walks. The tender greens of new grass
greeted them, and drifts of pink and yellow vaporous color that seemed
to overhang and envelop every branch of tree and shrub, like faint
spirits of flower and leaf, clustering about and striving to enter the
clefts of gray bark, that they might become embodied in tangible and
fragile beauty. Sweet pungent smells of damp earth rose to their
nostrils,--fragrance of reviving things, of stirring sap, of diligent
seeds moling their way to light and air. Mists shifted by softly, now
gray, now rainbow-hued, now trailing on the grass, now sifting slowly
through reluctant branches that strove to retain them.

Dorothy sighed happily. The restraint that had troubled them both slowly
metamorphosed itself into a tender, dreamy content. Why ask anything of
fate? Why crystallize with a word the cloudland perfection of the mirage
in which they walked? They were content, happy with the vernal joy of
young things in harmony with all the world of spring. They were silent
now--unconscious, and one with the heart of life, as were Adam and Eve
in the great garden of Eternal Spring--isolated, alone, all in all to
each other, and kin with all the vibrant life about them, sentient and
inanimate. For them the rainbow glowed in every drop the trailing mists
scattered in their wake; for them the pale light of the sun was pure
gold of dreams; every frail, courageous flower a delicate censor of
fragrance. There was c