him the benefit of her sweet weighted smile.

Peter lived greatly on these things. He was so sure of himself, of the
reality and strength of his passion; he had a feeling of its being quite
enough for them to go on, an inexhaustible, fairy capital out of which
almost anything that Eunice Goodward desired might be drawn. It was
fortunate that he found his passion so self-sufficing, for there was
little enough that Eunice afforded it by way of sustenance. For a week
he no more than kept in sight of her in the inevitable summer round; he
did not dance and the game of cards he could play was gauged to what
Ellen could manage in an occasional quiet evening at the Lessings'.

"I suppose," Eunice had said to him on an occasion when he had known
enough to decline an invitation for an afternoon's play to which Burton
Henderson was carrying her away, "that the stakes we play for aren't any
temptation to _you_."

"I think that they're out of proportion to the trouble you have to be at
to win them."

"Oh, if you don't care for the game----"

"I don't." And then casting about for a phrase that explained him more
happily, "Put it that I like to cut out my job and go to it." She gave
him a quick, condoning flash of laughter; the phrase was Lessing's and
out of her recognition of it he drew, loverlike, that assurance of
common understanding so dear to lovers. "Put it," he ventured further,
"that I don't like to see myself balked of the prize by the way the
cards are dealt."

"Ah, but that's what makes it a game. I'd no idea you were such
a--revolutionist."

"Evolutionist," he corrected, happy in having touched the subtler note
behind their persiflage. "I've all science on my side for the most
direct method." After all, why should he let even the Best Society deal
the cards for him? Should not a man sweep the boards of whatever kept
him from his natural mate?

That was on Tuesday, and the Thursday following he had asked the
Goodwards to motor over to Lighthouse Reef with him. He did not know
quite what he meant to bring about on this occasion; he had so much the
feeling of its being an occasion, the invitation had been so pointedly
given and accepted, it was with difficulty he adjusted himself to the
discovery on arriving at their hotel with the car, that Eunice had gone
to play tennis instead.

"The time is so short," Mrs. Goodward apologized; "she felt she must
make the most of it." She had to leave it there, not being able