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 footsteps, and Sophie drew away. "Mercy!" she exclaimed. "What would Matthew say!—not a word of course, but what he wouldn't say! . . . What time is it, dear?"

Trying not to exult at the new tone of endearment,—had things got as far as that!—Grover looked at his watch, as he had done on the memorable evening when Sophie had walked straight into him, to stay. "It's eleven-twenty," he said, and added, "Or the beginning of forever." It sounded like a title.

"Dear me!" said Sophie. "If that's what time it is, we'll need lunch. Wouldn't you like to drive far away, to Concord for instance, have lunch at an inn, then walk in the woods and contemplate Nature?"

"The farther the better," said Grover, "though I don't feel-exactly Emersonian."

Sophie got up to fetch cigarettes. "Non, je n'irai pas au bois, non! Non, je n'irai pas seulette," she sang, in muted tones.

Grover lit a match and completed the quatrain. "Tu connais trop le danger, où l'amour pourrait t'engager."

"Isn't French convenient, so sparing to one's pride," said Sophie, her face puckered into the composed smile that made her momentarily beautiful. If there were enough Sophies in the world, Grover was thinking, the standard of feminine beauty would be quite a different one, and pretty girls would be ugly. She was her old self again, as though nothing had happened, as though nothing ever could happen. "Do you know