wildered.

"I'm just tired and irritable, Bunny, and I'm taking it out on you....
Because you were always kind--and even when foolish you were often
considerate.... That's a new waistcoat, isn't it?"

"Well--I don't--know," he began, perplexed and suspicious, but she cut
him short with a light little laugh and reached out to pat his hand.

"Don't mind me. You know I like you.... I'm only bored with your
species. What do you do when you don't know what to do, Bunny?"

"Take a peg," he said, brightening up. "Do you--shall I call
somebody----"

"No, please."

She extended her slim limbs and crossed her feet. Lying still there in
the sunshine, arms crooked behind her head, she gazed straight out
ahead. Light breezes lifted her soft bright hair; the same zephyrs bore
from tennis courts on the east the far laughter and calling of the
unseen players.

"Who are they?" she inquired.

"The Pink 'uns, Naida, and Jack Dysart. There's ten up on every set," he
added, "and I've side obligations with Rosalie and Duane. Take you on if
you like; odds are on the Pink 'uns. Or I'll get a lump of sugar and we
can play 'Fly Loo.'"

"No, thanks."

A few moments later she said:

"Do you know, somehow, recently, the forest world--all this pretty place
of lakes and trees--" waving her arm toward the horizon--"seems to be
tarnished with the hard living and empty thinking of the people I have
brought into it.... I include myself. The region is redolent of money
and the things it buys. I had a better time before I had any or heard
about it."

"Why, you've always had it----"

"But I didn't know it. I'd like to give mine away and do something for a
living."

"Oh, every girl has that notion once in a lifetime."

"Have they?" she asked.

"Sure. It's hysteria. I had it myself once. But I found I could keep
busy enough doing nothing without presenting my income to the
Senegambians and spending life in a Wall Street office. Of course if I
had a pretty fancy for the artistic and useful--as Duane Mallett has--I
suppose I'd get busy and paint things and sell 'em by the perspiration
of my brow----"

She said disdainfully: "If you were never any busier than Duane, you
wouldn't be very busy."

"I don't know. Duane seems to keep at it, even here, doesn't he?"

She looked up in surprise: "Duane hasn't done any work since he's been
here, has he?"

"Didn't you know? What do you suppose he's about every morning?"

"He's about--Rosalie,"