their literary interests."

Philip asked, in dismay, "You didn't give it away did you, mother?"

"Certainly not, my dear. You have brought me up too carefully."

"Of course. I didn't imagine you had."

Then, as they could not pretend to look at the pictures any longer, they
went away, too. Their issue into the open air seemed fraught with novel
emotion for Mrs. Verrian. "Well, now," she said, "I have seen the woman
I would be willing my son should marry."

"Child, you mean," Philip said, not pretending that he did not know she
meant Miss Andrews.

"That girl," his mother returned, "is innocence itself. Oh, Philip,
dear, do marry her!"

"Well, I don't know. If her mother is behaving as sagely with her as you
are with me the chances are that she won't let me. Besides, I don't know
that I want to marry quite so much innocence."

"She is conscience incarnate," his mother uttered, perfervidly. "You
could put your very soul in her keeping."

"Then you would be out of a job, mother."

"Oh, I am not worthy of the job, my dear. I have always felt that. I am
too complex, and sometimes I can't see the right alone, as she could."

Philip was silent a moment while he lost the personal point of view. "I
suspect we don't see the right when we see it alone. We ought to see the
wrong, too."

"Ah, Philip, don't let your fancy go after that girl!"

"Miss Andrews? I thought--"

"Don't you be complex, my dear. You know I mean Miss Shirley. What has
become of her, I wonder. I heard Miss Andrews asking you."

"I wasn't able to tell her. Do you want me to try telling you?"

"I would rather you never could."

Philip laughed sardonically. "Now, I shall forget Thursdays and all the
other days, too. You are a very unwise parent, mother."

They laughed with each other at each other, and treated her enthusiasm
for Miss Andrews as the joke it partly was. Mrs. Verrian did not follow
him up about her idol, and a week or so later she was able to affect a
decent surprise when he came in at the end of an afternoon and declined
the cup of tea she proposed on the ground that he had been taking a cup
of tea with the Andrewses. "You have really been there?"

"Didn't you expect me to keep my promise?"

"But I was afraid I had put a stumbling-block in the way."

"Oh, I found I could turn the consciousness you created in me into
literary material, and so I was rather eager to go. I have got a point
for my new story out of it. I shall ha