ing her
troubled face intently.

"I wanted to--I wanted to go so much that I determined not to give in to
the feeling. Really it frightened me."

Dr. Harpe's eyes looked a muddy green, like the sea when it washes among
the piling.

"Perhaps I was wishing for you--_willing_ you to come."

"Were you? I felt as though something was _making_ me go, making me
almost against my will, and each time I started toward the door I simply
had to force myself to go back. I can't explain exactly, but it was so
strange."

"Very strange, Gus." Her eyes now held a curious gleam. "But the next
time you want to come--_come_, do you hear? I shall be wishing for you."

"But why did you stay away all day?"

"I wanted to see if you would miss me--how much."

"I was miserably lonesome. Don't do it again--please!"

"You have your Phidias." There was a sneer in her voice.

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Symes responded simply, "but he has been gone all day."

"All day! Dreadful--how very sad!" She laughed disagreeably. "And are
you still so desperately in love with Phidias?"

"Of course. Why not? He's very good to me. Did you imagine I was not?"

"Oh, no," the other returned carelessly.

"Then why did you ask?"

"No reason at all except that--I like you pretty well myself. Clothes
have been the making of you, Gus. You're an attractive woman now."

Mrs. Symes flushed with pleasure at the unusual compliment from Doctor
Harpe.

"Am I? Really?"

"You are. I like women anyhow; men bore me mostly. I had a desperate
'crush' at boarding-school, but she quit me cold when she married. I've
taken a great shine to you, Gus; and there's one thing you mustn't
forget."

"What's that?" Mrs. Symes asked, smiling.

"I'm jealous--of your Phidias."

"How absurd!" Mrs. Symes laughed aloud.

"I mean it." Dr. Harpe spoke lightly and there was a smile upon her
straight lips, but earnestness, a kind of warning, was in her eyes.

A clatter of tinware at the kitchen window attracted Symes's attention
as he came from the bedroom.

"What's the matter, grandmother?" he asked in the teasing tone he
sometimes used in speaking to her. "Not the cooking sherry, I hope."

She did not smile at his badinage.

"There's enough drinkin' in this house without my help," she returned
sharply.

"What do you mean?" Symes's eyes opened. "Are you serious?"

The question he saw was superfluous.

"It's nothin' I'd joke about."

"You amaze me. Do you mean Augusta--drinks?