ost was Mary Louise tempted to accept and stay, he looked so
helpless, in such terrific danger, standing there blinking at them,
his eyes vaguely trying to focus, and so mildly blue. His head with
the graying hair so closely cropped gave him an odd appearance of
boyishness, to which the smart little bow tie added not a little. He
was trim, dapper, in spite of the fact that his standing collar was a
size or two too large; in spite, too, of the tiny, well-trimmed
goatee. He looked like a faun in trouble. With a shadow of distress
crossing his face, he gave ground and backed away, the lamp tipping
perilously in his grasp. Joe sprang forward and rescued it, setting it
on the porch railing.

"We'd better be going, I reckon, Aunt Lorry. Miss Susie's all alone,"
he explained.

Mary Louise recovered herself with a start. What could she be thinking
of, letting Joe make her excuses for her? Somehow she felt a sharp
little wave of irritation against him for it. She hastened to add,
however, "Oh, no, Mrs. Mosby. Thank you so much. I really must be
getting home. Aunt Susie _will_ be worried. It's quite dark."

The little woman murmured something, and then, "And how is your Aunt
Susie? I must call. Give her my love, be sure," all in one breath.

"I will. You must," agreed Mary Louise, and turned to go. And as she
did so she caught a most lugubrious expression on the face of Uncle
Buzz, a gradual lengthening of all the muscles on one side of the
face, resolving itself finally into a prodigious wink, deliberate and
malign. Fortunately, it passed in the darkness the regard of the
partner of his joys and sorrows and roused no answering spark.

They made their adieus and passed on down the shaded avenue on foot.
Mary Louise gave an odd little shiver as they walked out into the
shadow, past the circle of the lamp on the railing. Uncle Buzz--Mr.
Mosby--had seemed always just a piece of background, a harmless bit of
scenery, a catalogue of amenities, a husk, a shell--she wondered how
many other things. And now he was cropping out with a personality, had
desires, problems, secret plottings, all behind the mask--a
Machiavelli.

She was aroused by a chuckle from Joe. The chuckle jarred. She turned
and frowned at him in the darkness. Their shoes crunched in the small
gravel of the roadway and then directly they came to the gate and
turned along a wooden walk.

"Uncle Buzz's sure ripe," Joe's voice came out of nowhere. "Been ripe
for ove