ast arrived, Johnny's perplexity became audible:

"Perhaps," he told Edith, satirically, "you may be able, now, to tear
yourself away from Eleanor, and go fishing with me? You fish pretty
well--for a woman. Maurice can lug her round."

"I will, if Maurice will go, too," Edith said.

"What do you drag him in for?"--John paused; understanding dawned upon
him: "She doesn't want to be by herself with me!" His tanned face slowly
reddened, and those brown eyes of his behind the big spectacles grew
keen. He didn't speak for quite a long time; then he said, very low,
"I'll be here to-morrow morning at four-thirty. Be ready. I'll dig
bait."

"All right," said Edith; after which, for the first time in her life,
she played a shabby trick on Johnny Bennett; as soon as he had gone
home, she invited Eleanor (who promptly declined), and Maurice (who as
promptly accepted), to go fishing, too! Then, having got what she
wanted, she reproached herself: "Johnny'll be mad as fury. But when he
gets to saying things to me he makes me feel funny in the back of my
neck. Besides, I want Maurice."

The fishermen were to assemble in the grayness of the August dawn; and
Johnny was, as usual, prepared to throw a handful of gravel at Edith's
window to hurry her downstairs. But when he loomed up in the mist, who
should be on the porch, fooling with a rod, but Maurice!

"What's he butting in for?" Johnny thought, looking so cross that
Edith, coming out with the luncheon basket, was really remorseful.
"Hullo, Johnny," she said. ("I never played it on him before," she was
thinking.) But at that moment her remorse was lost in alarm, for
standing in the doorway was Eleanor, her hair caught up in a hurried
twist, a wrapper over her shoulders, her bare feet thrust into pink
bedroom slippers. (Forty-six looks fifty-six at 4.30 A.M.)

"Darling," Eleanor said, "I believe I'd like to go up to the cabin
to-day. Do let's do it--just you and I!"

The three young people all spoke at once:

Johnny said: "Good scheme! We'll excuse Maurice."

Edith said, "Oh, Eleanor, Maurice loves fishing!"

And Maurice said: "I sort of think I'd like to catch a sucker or two in
this pool Johnny is always cracking up. I bet he's in for a big jolt
about his trout! You come, too?"

"I'd get so awfully tired. And I--I thought we could have a day together
up on the mountain," she ended, wistfully.

There was a dead silence. Johnny was thinking: "Gosh! I hope she gets
him."