"I--I don't know," she answered with a little sigh; "I am so tired of it all. Don't let us talk about it--will you?"

"It isn't often I talk about it," he said, laughing again.

"Oh! That is unusual. Why don't you talk about art?"

"I'm much too busy."

"D--doing what? If that is not _very_ impertinent."

"Oh, making pictures of things," he said, intensely amused.

"Pictures? You don't talk about art, and you paint pictures!"

"Yes."

"W--what kind? Do you mind my asking? You are so--so very unusual."

"Well, to earn my living, I make full-page pictures for magazines; to satisfy an absurd desire, I paint people--things--anything that might satisfy my color senses." He shrugged his shoulders gaily. "You see, I'm the sort you are so tired of----"

"But you _paint_! The artists I know don't paint--except _that_ way--"

She raised her pretty gloved thumb and made a gesture in the air; and, before she had achieved it, they were both convulsed with laughter.

"You never do that, do you?" she asked at length.

"No, I never do. I can't afford to decorate the atmosphere for nothing!"

"Then--then you are not interested in art nouveau?"

"No; and I never could see that beautiful music resembled frozen architecture."

They were laughing again, looking with confidence and delight upon one another as though they had started life's journey together in that ancient omnibus.

"_What_ is a 'necklace of precious tones'?" she asked.

"Precious stones?"

"No, _tones_!"

"Let me cite, as an example, those beautiful verses of Henry Haynes,"

he replied gravely.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE

I'd rather be a Could Be, If I can not be an Are; For a Could Be is a May Be, With a chance of touching par.

I had rather be a Has Been Than a Might Have Been, by far; For a Might Be is a Hasn't Been But a Has was _once_ an Are!

Also an Are is Is and Am; A Was _was_ all of these; So I'd rather be a Has Been Than a Hasn't, if you please.

And they fell a-laughing so shamelessly that the 'bus driver turned and squinted through his shutter at them, and the scandalized horses stopped of their own accord.

"Are you going to leave?" he asked as she rose.

"Yes; this is the Park," she said. "Thank you, and good-by."

He held the door for her; she nodded her thanks and descended, turning frankly to smile again in acknowledgment of his quickly lifted hat.

"He _was_ nice," she reflected a trifle guiltily, "and I had a good time, and I really don't see any danger in it."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XV

[Ill.u.s.tration]

She drew a deep, sweet breath as she entered the leafy shade and looked up into the bluest of cloudless skies. Odors of syringa and lilac freshened her, cleansing her of the last lingering taint of joss-sticks.

The cardinal birds were very busy in the scarlet ma.s.ses of j.a.panese quince; orioles fluttered among golden Forsythia; here and there an exotic starling preened and peered at the burnished purple grackle, stalking solemnly through the tender gra.s.s.

For an hour she walked vigorously, enchanted with the sun and sky and living green, through arbors heavy with wistaria, iris hued and scented, through rambles under tall elms tufted with new leaves, past fountains splashing over, past lakes where water-fowl floated or stretched brilliant wings in the late afternoon sunlight. At times the summer wind blew her hair, and she lifted her lips to it, caressing it with every fiber of her; at times she walked pensively, wondering why she had been forbidden the Park unless accompanied.

"More danger, I suppose," she thought impatiently.... "Well, what is this danger that seems to travel like one's shadow, d.o.g.g.i.ng a girl through the world? It seems to me that if all the pleasant things of life are so full of danger I'd better find out what it is.... I might as well look for it so that I'll recognize it when I encounter it.... And learn to keep away."

She scanned the flowery thickets attentively, looked behind her, then walked on.

"If it's robbers they mean," she reflected, "I'm a good wrestler, and I can make any one of my four brothers-in-law look foolish.... Besides, the Park is full of fat policemen.... And if they mean I'm likely to get lost, or run over, or arrested, or poisoned with soda-water and bonbons--" She laughed to herself, swinging on in her free-limbed, wholesome beauty, scarcely noticing a man ahead, occupying a bench half hidden under the maple's foliage.

"So I'll just look about for this danger they are all afraid of, and when I see it, I'll know what to do," she concluded, paying not the slightest heed to the man on the bench until he rose, as she pa.s.sed him, and took off his hat.

"You!" she exclaimed.

She had stopped short, confronting him with the fearless and charming directness natural to her. "What an amusing accident," she said frankly.

"The truth is," he began, "it is not exactly an accident."

"Isn't it?"

"N--no.... Are you offended?"

"Offended? No. Should I be? Why?... Besides, I suppose when we have finished this conversation you are going the _other_ way."

"I--no, I wasn't."

"Oh! Then you are going to sit here?"