d July and the scent of honeysuckle.

"I thought I was dead when you helped me out of that wreck," she went
on in a quivering voice, and her long-fingered hand on his face. "I
think I must be really dead to-night. Surely this is too sweet to be
life."

"Dear little Tootles," said Martin softly. She was so close that he
could feel the rise and fall of her breasts. "Don't let's talk of
death. We're too young."

The sap was stirring in his veins. She was like a fairy, this girl, who
ought never to have wandered into a city.

"Martin," she said, "when the sun gets cold and there's a chill in the
air will you ever come back to this hour in a dream?"

"Often, Tootles, my dear."

"And will you see the light in my eyes and feel my hands on your face
and my lips on your lips?"

She bent forward and put them there and drew back with a shaking sob
and scrambled up and fled.

She had seen the others coming, but that was not why she had torn
herself away. One flash of sex was enough that night. The next time he
must do the kissing.

Eve and July and the scent of honeysuckle!

Breakfast was on the table. To Irene, who came down in her dressing
gown with her hair just bundled up and her face coated with powder,
eight o'clock was an unearthly hour at which to begin the day. In New
York she slept until eleven, read the paper until twelve, cooked and
disposed of a combined breakfast-lunch at one, and if it was a matinee
day, rushed round to the theater, and if it wasn't, killed time until
her work called her in the evening. A boob's life, as she called it,
was a trying business, but the tyranny of the bustling woman with whom
she lodged was such that if breakfast was not eaten at eight o'clock it
was not there to eat. Like an English undergraduate who scrambles out
of bed to attend Chapel simply to avoid a fine, this product of
Broadway theaterdom conformed to the rule of Mrs. Burrell's energetic
house because the good air of Devon gave her a voracious appetite.
Then, too, even if she missed breakfast, she had to pay for it, "so
there you are, old dear."

Tootles, up with the lark as usual, was down among the ducks, giving
Farmer Burrell a useful hand. She delighted in doing so. From a country
grandfather she had inherited a love of animals and of the early
freshness of the morning that found eager expression, now that she had
the chance of giving it full rein. Then, too, all that was maternal in
her nature warmed at the