"

"Nothing, Dolly," he answered, his straight, athletic body a bit gawky
with embarrassment; "nothing."

Then, as she peered, still doubtful, through the crack: "It's a new
exercise I have--a dandy. See?"

And lamely he placed both his hands beneath his armpits and waved his
elbows up and down three times.

"Oh," she said, as if satisfied.

But, as a matter of fact, this was not the accurate repetition of what
she had seen. He had been standing before the mirror very straight, then,
a-tip-toe, his chest bulging; his arms, bent with hands beneath the
shoulders, had been beating up and down with a rapidity that made of them
a mere white vibration, their tattoo upon his ribs like the beating of a
drum; and suddenly, as if to some singular ecstasy, his head had gone
back and out of his rounded mouth there had clarioned a clear
cock-a-doo-del-doo-oo, much like that of chanticleer heralding the sun.

"It's fine--it's fine for the pectoral muscles," he went on, more firmly.

"Well," she said charitably, "jump into your bath, quick, dear. Breakfast
is ready, and you'll be late at the office again if you don't hurry." She
closed the door softly upon him.

It was seldom that she intruded thus upon the mystery of his morning
hygienics. It was with a clothed Charles-Norton that she had first fallen
in love; and like most women (who, being practical, realize that, since
it is dressed, after all, that men go through the world, it is dressed
that they must be judged) Dolly appreciated her handsome young husband
best in his broad-shouldered sack-coat and well-creased trousers.

Charles-Norton, still rather abashed, dropped into the cold green tub,
splashed, rubbed down, dressed, and sat down to breakfast. As he ate his
waffles, though, out of the blue breakfast set which Dolly's charming,
puzzle-browed economy had managed to extort from the recalcitrant family
budget, his usual glowing loquacity of after-the-bath was lacking. His
eyes wandered furtively about the little encumbered room; thoughts,
visibly, rolled within his head which did not find his lips. And when he
bade Dolly good-by, on the fifth-story landing, she missed in his kiss
the usual warm linger.

CHAPTER II

When Charles-Norton reached the street, a narrow side-street in which
like a glacier the ice of the whole winter was still heaped, a whiff of
soft air, perfumed with a suspicion of spring, struck him gently in the
face. He drew it in deep within