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 As sisterly as ever, Rhoda showed fewer signs of the old tendency to challenge and tease. Whereas she had once almost scoffed at his artistic leanings, his romantic notions, she now seemed to accept them without question. During his vacations from college she had taunted him with not being interested in "anything of less than five syllables;" now she seemed almost eager to hear his vocabulary. In fact she was the very first person who had ever looked at him with the trace of awe that the sight of a live artist is wont to arouse in the breast of a virgin, and there was something extremely ironic to him in that fact.

"I'm sure you know an awful lot of riff-raff," she said. "I'd love to meet some of them."

"If you condemn them before you even see them," he retorted, "you haven't much chance."

"I'll be as tough as I can," Rhoda assured him, pulling her hat over one eye to the horror of Miss Pearn, whose face nevertheless was a network of smiles that reminded Grover of the wrinkles on Mme. Choiseul's cold boiled milk.

Grover shook his head. "They'd see through the pose at a glance; riff-raff being very perspicacious—and, though you might not believe it, not at all tough."

"What are they then?"

"Like me, I suppose."

"Oh, that would be too nice," said Rhoda. "I couldn't bear it."