ing you?" he said presently. His tone jarred a little on
Phoebe; he had such a nice voice generally.

"No," said she. "Why?"

"Because you keep on doing that."

"Doing what?"

"That."

"Oh!--this?"

She put up her hand and untwisted the little tendril of brown hair
that hung deliciously over her left ear.

"I always do that when I'm thinking."

He very nearly said, "Then, for God's sake, don't think."

But Phoebe was always thinking now. He had given her cause to
think.

He began to hate the little brown curl that hung over her left ear,
though it was anguish to him to hate anything that was Phoebe's.
He looked out with nervous anxiety for the movement of her little
white hand. He said to himself, "If she does it again, I can't come
near her any more."

Yet he kept on coming; and was happy with her until Phoebe (poor,
predestined little Phoebe) did it again. Gibson shuddered with the
horror of the thing. He kept on saying to himself, "She's sweet,
she's good, she's adorable. It isn't her fault. But I can't--I can't
sit in the room with it."

And the next minute Phoebe would be so adorable that he would
repent miserably of his brutality.

Then, one hot, still evening, he was alone with her in the little
sitting-room. Outside, on the grass plot, her father sat in his
bath-chair while Effie read aloud to him (out of her turn). Her
voice made a cover for Gibson's voice and Phoebe's.

Phoebe was dressed (for the heat) in a white gown with wide, open
sleeves. Her low collar showed the pure, soft swell of her neck to
the shoulder-line.

She was sitting upright and demure in a straight-backed chair, with
her hands folded quietly in her lap.

"That isn't a very comfortable chair you've got," he said.

He knew that she was tired with pushing the bath-chair about all
day.

"It's the one I always sit in," said Phoebe.

"Well, you're not going to sit in it now," he said.

He drew the armchair out of its sacred corner and made her sit in
that. He put a cushion at her head and a footstool at her feet.

"You make my heart ache," he said.

"Do I?"

He could not tell whether the little shaking breath she drew were a
laugh or a sigh.

She lay back, letting her tired body slacken into rest.

The movement loosened the little combs that kept the coil of her
brown hair in place. Phoebe abhorred dishevelment. She put up her
hands to her head. Her wide sleeve fell back, showing the full
length of her white a