eard the lion in his den. There was such
a thing as too much formality in a family circle. Yet I felt a bit
audacious as I quietly pushed open that study door. I even weakened in
my decision about pouncing on Dinky-Dunk from behind, like a
leopardess on a helpless stag. Something in his pose, in fact, brought
me up short.

Dinky-Dunk was sitting with his head on his hand, staring at the
wall-paper. And it wasn't especially interesting wall-paper. He was
sitting there in a trance, with a peculiar line of dejection about his
forward-fallen shoulders. I couldn't see his face, but I felt sure it
was not a happy face.

I even came to a stop, without speaking a word, and shrank rather
guiltily back through the doorway. It was a relief, in fact, to find
that I was able to close the door without making a sound.

When Dinky-Dunk came down-stairs, half an hour later, he seemed his
same old self. He talked and laughed and inquired if Nip and
Tuck--those are the names he sometimes takes from his team and pins on
Poppsy and Pee-Wee--had given me a hard day of it and explained that
Francois--our man on the Harris Ranch--had sent down a robe of plaited
rabbit-skin for them.

I did my best, all the time, to keep my inquisitorial eye from
fastening itself on Dunkie's face, for I knew that he was playing up
to me, that he was acting a part which wasn't coming any too easy. But
he stuck to his role. When I put down my sewing, because my eyes were
tired, he even inquired if I hadn't done about enough for one day.

"I've done about half what I ought to do," I told him. "The trouble
is, Dinky-Dunk, I'm getting old. I'm losing my bounce!"

That made him laugh a little, though it was rather a wistful laugh.

"Oh, no, Gee-Gee," he announced, momentarily like his old self,
"whatever you lose, you'll never lose that undying girlishness of
yours!"

It was not so much what he said, as the mere fact that he could say
it, which sent a wave of happiness through my maternal old body. So I
made for him with my Australian crawl-stroke, and kissed him on both
sides of his stubbly old face, and rumpled him up, and went to bed
with a touch of silver about the edges of the thunder-cloud still
hanging away off somewhere on the sky-line.

_Wednesday the Twenty-fifth_

There was indeed something wrong. I knew that the moment I heard
Dinky-Dunk come into the house. I knew it by the way he let the
storm-door swing shut, b