ht
him to Rose-Cross, the maddest yachtsman on the Atlantic. Why should
Guilford forbid the topic as though its discussion were painful to
Wayne?

"He always gets the wrong end foremost, as Briggs said," thought the
young man. "I wonder where the deuce Briggs can be? I'm no match for
this bunch."

His thoughts halted; he became aware that the poet was speaking in a
rich, resonant voice, and he listened in an attitude of painful
politeness.

"It's the little things that are most precious," the poet was saying,
and pinched the air with forefinger and thumb and pursed up his lips as
though to whistle some saccharine air.

"The little things," he continued, delicately perforating the atmosphere
as though selecting a diatom.

"Big things go, too," ventured Wayne.

"No," said the poet; "no--or rather they _do_ go, in a certain sense,
for every little thing is precious, and therefore little things are
big!---big with portent, big in value. Do you follow me, Mr. Wayne?"

Wayne's fascinated eyes were fixed on the poet. The latter picked out
another atom from the atmosphere and held it up for Mr. Wayne's
inspection; and while that young man's eyes protruded the poet rambled
on and on until the melody of his voice became a ceaseless sound, a
vague, sustained monotone, which seemed to bore into Wayne's brain until
his legs twitched with a furious desire for flight.

When he obtained command of himself the poet was saying, "It is my hour
for withdrawal. It were insincere and artificial to ask your
indulgence----"

He rose to his rotund height.

"You are due to sit in your cage," stammered Wayne, comprehending.

"My den," corrected the poet, saturating the air with the sweetness of
his smile.

Wayne arose. "About that business--" he began desperately; but the
poet's soft, heavy hand hovered in mid-air, and Wayne sat down so
suddenly that when his eyes recovered their focus the poet had
disappeared.

A benumbed resentment struggled within him for adequate expression;
he hitched his chair about to command a view of the meadow, then sat
motionless, hypnotized by the view. Eight girls, clad in pink blouses
and trousers, golden hair twisted up, decorated the landscape. Some were
kneeling, filling baskets of woven, scented grasses with wild
strawberries; some were wading the branches of the meadow brook,
searching for trout with grass-woven nets; some picked early peas; two
were playing a lightning set at tennis. And in