he watched her head in the mirror, bent upon the busy
scissors with an expression of tight determination, a distinct irritation
seized him sometimes.

Charles-Norton, in short, was accumulating, drop by drop, a masculine
grouch. A grouch deeper than he realized, till that morning.

That morning Dolly, in the midst of the daily operation, paused with
scissors in air, a sudden inspiration upon her brow.

"Oh, Goosie," she exclaimed; "How would it be to cauterize them?"

Charles-Norton gave a jump. "Cauterize!" he cried; "cauterize what?"

"Why, the little feathers. Supposing we burned the place, you know, with
nitrate of silver, or something like that. They do it to people who have
moles--or when they have been bitten by a mad dog. Maybe--maybe it would
stop it--altogether."

Charles-Norton looked up at her. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes were
bright; she was excited and pleased with her ingenious idea. A cold wave
rose about Charles-Norton and closed over his head. "Say,'" he bawled
ungraciously; "what do you take me for! Think I'm made of asbestos?"

Discreet Dolly immediately dropped the subject; though somehow
Charles-Norton had the distinct impression that it was only discreetly
that she did so, that, in fact, she was not dropping the idea, but merely
tucking it away somewhere within the secret hiding-places of her being,
for further use. He could still see it, in fact, graven there upon the
whiteness of her voluntary little forehead.

He brooded black over it all day. He brooded on other things,
too--insignificant things that had happened in the past, that had not
mattered one whit then, but which now, beneath his fostering care, began
to grow into big, flapping boog-a-boos. And when he returned that night,
he was a very mean Charles-Norton. He spoke hardly a word at dinner,
pretended he did not like the vanilla custard over which Dolly had toiled
all day, her soul aglow with creative delight, sipped but half of his
demi-tasse (as though the coffee were bitter, which it wasn't), and went
off to bed early with a good-night so frigid that Dolly's little nose
tingled for several minutes afterward.

And the next morning, when Dolly, astonished at the delay, finally peeped
into the bath-room, scissors in hand, she found Charles-Norton fully
dressed, his coat on.

"Why, Goosie," she said in surprise; "I haven't clipped you yet!"

"No?" he growled enigmatically.

"Take off your coat, dearie," she went on.

"