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Rh asked; "it must have been rather frog-like."

"I hadn't time," Garth explained; "I had to drop the nicest crab, even then.")

The two men walked toward the landing, and when Joan and Elspeth joined them the Count wore a puzzled expression, and Jim was saying gravely:

"The whole of art can be summed up thus, can it not? The Thought is revealed in nine high-flamed bursts of symmetry,—the circum-ambient arc of effusion is transmuted to the myopic nerve; the result: sublimely superneurotic, replete with a transcendental temerity."

"It is a t'eory," Stysalski admitted, "yes, a t'eory."

But as he walked to his boat he seemed to be pondering deeply.

"It has been a charming episode," said the Count, as he made his adieux; "I hope to repeat your acquaintance. But if not here, will you not all have tea with me,—on Friday, let us say? A tea in the outdoors, as in my co'ntry. There is a delightful hill where it would be mos' pleasant."

Jim was making sail on his boat, for it was time to go in for the mail, and he did not hear the invitation, which Elspeth accepted.