mention the matter, he turns
round with his sweetest smile and he says, 'Oh, don't you trouble, Mrs.
Peck!' he says. 'I quite understand. Miss Columbine explained it all,
and I quite see your point. It ought to have occurred to me sooner,' he
says, smiling with them nice teeth of his, 'but, if you'll believe me,
it didn't.' And then, when I suggested maybe he'd like you or Adam to go
with him instead, it was, 'No, no, Mrs. Peck. I wouldn't ask it of 'em.
I couldn't drag any man at the chariot-wheels of Art. If I did, she
would see to it that the chariot was empty.' He most always talks like
that," ended Mrs. Peck in an aggrieved tone. "He's that airy in his
ways."

A sudden trill of laughter from the doorway caused her to straighten
herself sharply and trot to the fireplace with a guilty air.

Columbine entered, light of foot, her eyes brimful of mirth. "You're
caught, Aunt Liza! Yes, you're caught!" she commented ungenerously. "I
know exactly what you were saying. Shall I tell you? No, p'raps I'd
better not. I'll tell you what you looked like instead, shall I? You
looked exactly like that funny old speckled hen in the yard who always
clucks such a lot. And Rufus"--she threw him a merry glance from which
all resentment had wholly departed--"Rufus looks--and is--just like a
great red ox."

"Don't you be pert!" said Mrs. Peck, stooping stoutly over the fire.
"Get a duster and dust them plates!"

Columbine laughed again with her chin in the air. She found a duster and
occupied herself as desired.

Her eyes were upon her work. Plainly she was not looking at Rufus, not
apparently thinking of him. But--very suddenly--without changing her
attitude, she flashed him a swift glance. He was looking straight at
her, and in his blue eyes was an intense, deep glow as of flaming
spirit.

Columbine's look shot away from him with the rapidity of a swallow on
the wing. The colour deepened in her cheeks.

"P'raps he's almost more like a prize bull," she said meditatively.
"Perhaps he's a Minotaur, Aunt Liza. Do you think he is?"

"My dear, I don't know what you're talking about," said Mrs. Peck, with
a touch of acidity.

Columbine laughed a little. "Do you know, Rufus?" she said.

She did not look at him with the question; there was a quivering dimple
in her red cheek that came and went.

"I'd like to know," said Rufus with simplicity.

"Would you, really?" Columbine polished the last plate vigorously and
set it down. "Th