ou see, when you say to a man: "Why do you let the woman kick you?" and
he replies, with a glare of indignation: "She has deigned to touch my
unworthy carcass with her sacred boot!" what in the world are you to do,
save resume the interrupted enjoyment of your cigar? This I did. I also
found amusement in comparing his meek wooing, like that of an early
Italian amorist, with his rumbustious theories as to marriage by capture
and other primitive methods of bringing woman to heel.

Doria, seeing him unresentful of kicking, continued to kick (when
Barbara wasn't looking--for Barbara had read her a lecture on the polite
treatment of trustees and executors) and made him more her slave than
ever. He fetched and carried. He read poetry. He was Custodian of the
Sacred Rubbers, when the grass was damp. He shielded her from over-rough
incursions on the part of Susan. He chanted the responses in her Litany
of Saint Adrian. He sacrificed his golf so that he could sit near her
and hold figurative wool for her to unwind. It was very pretty to watch
them. The contrast between them made its unceasing appeal. Besides,
Doria did not kick all the time; there were long spells during which,
touched by the giant's devotion, she repaid it in tokens of tender
regard. At such times she was as fascinating an elf as one could wish to
meet on a spring morning. He could bring, like no one else, the smile
into her dark, mournful eyes. There is no doubt that, in her way and as
far as her Adrian-bound emotional temperament permitted, she felt
grateful to Jaffery. She also felt safe in his company. He was like a
great St. Bernard dog, she declared to Barbara.

These idyllic relations continued unruffled for some days, until a
letter arrived from the eminent novelist to whom, with Doria's approval,
Jaffery had sent the proofs.

"A marvellous story," was the great man's verdict; "singularly different
from 'The Diamond Gate,' only resembling it in its largeness of
conception and the perfection of its kind. The alteration of a single
word would spoil it. If an alien hand is there, it is imperceptible."

At this splendid tribute Jaffery beamed with happiness. He tossed the
letter to Barbara across the breakfast table.

"No alien hand perceptible. Ho! ho! ho! But it's stunning, isn't it? I
do believe the old fraud of a book is going to win through. This ought
to satisfy Doria, don't you think so?"

"It ought to," said Barbara. "I'll send it up to her roo