certainly six weeks ago. You know I had it made
very early. Oh yes, the second or third bill did come yesterday. I
have had so many, I get mixed over those bills."

"Well, it is a right pretty gown, and I would wear it if I were you,"
said Mrs. Carroll.

Chapter VIII

Shortly after Captain Carroll started upon his search for his missing
son, Randolph Anderson, sitting peacefully in his back office, by the
riverward window, was rudely interrupted. He was mounting some new
specimens. Before him the great tiger cat lay blissfully on his red
cushion. He was not asleep, but was purring loudly in what resembled
a human day-dream. His claws luxuriously pricked through the velvet
of his paws, which were extended in such a way that he might have
served as a model for a bas-relief of a cat running a race. Now and
then the tip of his tail curled and uncurled with an indescribable
effect of sensuousness. The green things in the window-box had grown
luxuriantly, and now and then trailing vines tossed up past the
window in the infrequent puffs of wind. The afternoon was very warm.
The temperature had risen rapidly since noon. Down below the wide
window ran the river, unseen except for a subtle, scarcely
perceptible glow of the brilliant sunlight upon the water. It was a
rather muddy stream, but at certain times it caught the sunlight and
tossed it back as from the facets of brown jewels.

The murmur of the river was plainly audible in the room. It was very
loud, for the stream's current was still high with the spring rains.
The rustle of the trees which grew on the river-bank was also
discernible, and might have been the rustle of the garments of nymphs
tossed about their supple limbs by the warm breeze. In fact, a like
fancy occurred to Anderson as he sat there mounting his butterflies.

"I don't wonder those old Greeks had their tales about nymphs
closeted in trees," he thought, for the rustle of the green boughs
had suggested the rustle of women's draperies.

Then he remembered how Charlotte Carroll's skirts had rustled as she
went out of the store that last afternoon when he had spoken to her.
There was a soft crispness of ruffling lawns and laces, a most
delicate sound, a maidenly sound which had not been unlike the sound
of the young leaves of the willows overfolding and interlacing with
one another when the soft breeze swelled high. Now and then all the
afternoon came a slow, soft wave of warm wind out of the wes