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 to add, "Ne'mind, Jock, I'm with you. You know how to pick 'em."

"Don't I, though?"

"I don't see how you do it," Pink continued. "I swear I don't. I was just saying to Bones before you came in, how does he do it, and Bones said, 'Why, it's his fatal beauty:

Jock bowed his head approvingly to Bones. "Truest words you ever uttered, brother!" . . . Secretly he was restless and impatient, bored with this persiflage and the necessity of returning it in kind. He longed to be by himself, alone with the new great glory that had risen in an hour from the ashes of an old ideal. He wanted to look into the mirror at the man whom Yvonne loved, and try to understand how she could. He wanted to think of the future. Of Yvonne belonging to him. . . not only saying that she would some day, but actually being his. It was a prospect to take the breath away like a keen wind in the face, to make the arms reach out suddenly and the blood leap and sing in the veins. . . . Maddening, to have to be facetious and light about it all for the sake of these two who watched eagle-eyed. Damn Pink Davis, anyway! "—that baby can use my toothbrush any time," Pink was now magnanimously declaring.

Jock sprawled in a chair and lit his pipe. "Any mail?" he inquired, to change the subject.

"Desk," said Bones succinctly.

Two letters propped against the inkwell, and a third flat on the blotter. He picked this up and glowered, much as Bones had glowered at it some minutes earlier, "Now what," he said to himself. He perceived that Bones was looking at him over his shoulder with eyes darkly round in a ruddy face. The eyes flickered meaningly toward Pink and back again. Jock, thus warned,