fety valve.

"I despise a woman who goes mad about the clergy, Dolph, and I despise
the way this new rector-man of ours keeps my eyes glued upon him, all
the time he's preaching. It isn't the quality of his sermons, either;
it is something inherent in the man himself that causes me to watch
him."

Dolph Dennison laughed with the callousness of a wayward boy. He was
years younger than his brother, the professor. Moreover, he had never
taken any especial pains to expedite the processes of his growing up.

"You'll recover, Olive; I have seen you enthused like this, before. As
for Brenton, it's a mere case of burbling genteel platitudes in a
marvellous voice. Even I, though I deplore the platitudes, find my own
gooseflesh rising in response to his larynx. It's a tremendous asset to
a man, that! Some day, when I have the time, I'll work it out into a
series of equations: heart and brain and larynx as the unknown
quantities to be properly equated, so much brain for so much, or so
little, larynx. Thanks, no. I won't come in. I'm late for luncheon now.
You will be at the Evans tea, to-morrow afternoon?"

Nodding cheerily, young Dennison went on his way, leaving Olive to
ponder upon the accuracy of his diagnosis. Was it only larynx, after
all? Or had the new young rector something back of it, something that
singled him out from the ruck of men, and held him up as worthy of
attention? Olive's eyes grew thoughtful, for an instant, at the
question. Then the laugh came back into them again, the while she
thought of Mrs. Brenton.

It was only the next afternoon that Brenton came by appointment to call
on Doctor Keltridge. There were certain minor matters to be discussed
between the rector and his senior warden, before it appeared really
wise to bring them up in open meeting. To both men, it seemed possible
to discuss them with greater freedom from interruption at the doctor's
house than at the rectory. Therefore had been the appointment between
them.

According to his custom, Brenton kept his appointment to the very
letter, and the clocks were striking three, when the Keltridge maid
deposited him in the Keltridge drawing-room. The doctor showed himself
less punctual, however, and a good quarter of an hour elapsed before
steps were heard in the hall outside. Moreover, before Brenton had time
to question to himself the weight of those same steps, the door was
pushed open to admit, not a keen-faced and grizzly doctor, but a
tota