nely, with the statement that she
was indisposed, sorry not to have notified the directors, and all that.
They do it repeatedly every season."

"But an errand of mercy, the strange automobile which can not be found?
The engagement to dine with the Barone? Celeste Fournier's statement? You
can't get around these things. I tell you, Nora isn't that kind. She's too
big in heart and mind to stoop to any such devices," vehemently.

"Nora! That looks pretty serious, Abby. You haven't gone and made a fool
of yourself, have you?"

"What do you call making a fool of myself?" truculently.

"You aren't a suitor, are you? An accepted suitor?" unruffled, rather
kindly.

"No, but I would to heaven that I were!" Abbott jammed the newspaper into
his pocket and slung the stool over his arm. "Come on over to the studio
until I get some money."

"You are really going to start a search?"

"I really am. I'd start one just as quickly for you, if I heard that you
had vanished under mysterious circumstances."

"I believe you honestly would."

"You are an old misanthrope. I hope some woman puts the hook into you some
day. Where did you pick up the grouch? Some of your dusky princesses give
you the go-by?"

"You, too, Abby?"

"Oh, rot! Of course I never believed any of that twaddle. Only, I've got a
sore head to-day. If you knew Nora as well as I do, you'd understand."

Courtlandt walked on a little ahead of the artist, who looked up and down
the athletic form, admiringly. Sometimes he loved the man, sometimes he
hated him. He marched through tragedy and comedy and thrilling adventure
with no more concern that he evinced in striding through these gardens.
Nearly every one had heard of his exploits; but who among them knew
anything of the real man, so adroitly hidden under unruffled externals?
That there was a man he did not know, hiding deep down within those
powerful shoulders, he had not the least doubt. He himself possessed the
quick mobile temperament of the artist, and he could penetrate but not
understand the poise assumed with such careless ease by his friend. Dutch
blood had something to do with it, and there was breeding, but there was
something more than these: he was a reversion, perhaps, to the type of man
which had made the rovers of the Lowlands feared on land and sea, now
hemmed in by convention, hampered by the barriers of progress, and
striving futilely to find an outlet for his peculiar energies. One bit of
knowl