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When he started off, with Miss Swanson, he left the Senator’s book behind him in the store. He did not miss it till he had gone to bed.

Two days afterward, the Senator’s chauffeur again telephoned an invitation to tea for that afternoon, but this time Selig snapped, “Sorry! Tell the Senator I unfortunately shan’t be able to come!”

“Just a moment, please,” said the chauffeur. “The Senator wishes to know if you care to come to dinner tomorrow evening—eight— he’ll send for you. ”

“Well—Yes, tell him I’ll be glad to come. ”

After all, dinner here at Sky Peaks was pretty bad, and he’d get away early in the evening.

He rejoiced in having his afternoon free for work. But the confounded insistence of the Senator had so bothered him that he banged a book on his table and strolled outside.

The members of the camp were playing One Old Cat, with Selma Swanson, very jolly in knickerbockers, as cheer leader. They yelped at Selig to join them and, after a stately refusal or two, he did. He had a good time. Afterward he pretended to wrestle with Miss Swanson—she had the supplest waist and, seen close up, the moistest eyes. So he was glad that he had not wasted his
afternoon listening to that old bore.

The next afternoon, at six, a splendid chapter done, he went off for a climb up Mount Poverty with Miss Swanson. The late sun was so rich on pasture, pine clumps, and distant meadows, and Miss Swanson was so lively in tweed skirt and brogues—but the stockings were silk—that he regretted having promised to be at the Senator’s at eight.

“But of course I always keep my promises,” he reflected proudly.

They sat on a flat rock perched above the valley, and he observed in rather a classroom tone, “How remarkable that light is—the way it picks out that farmhouse roof, and then the shadow of those maples on the grass. Did you ever realize that it’s less the shape of things than the light that gives a landscape beauty?”

“No, I don’t think I ever did. That’s so. It’s the light! My, how observant you are!”

“Oh, no, I’m not. I’m afraid I’m just a bookworm. ”

“Oh, you are not! Of course you’re tremendously scholarly—my, I’ve learned so much about study from you—but then, you’re so active—you were just a circus playing One Old Cat yesterday. I do admire an all-round man. ”

At seven-thirty, holding her firm hand, he was saying, “But really, there’s so much that I lack that—But you do think I’m right about it’s being so much manlier not to drink like that old man? By the way, we must start back. ”

At a quarter to eight, after he had kissed her and apologized and kissed her, he remarked, “Still, he can wait a while—won’t make any difference. ”

At eight: “Golly, it’s so late! Had no idea. Well, I better not go at all now. I’ll just phone him this evening and say I got balled up on the date. Look! Let’s go down to the lake and dine on the wharf at the boathouse, just you and I. ”

“Oh, that would be grand!” said Miss Selma Swanson.

Lafayette Ryder sat on the porch that, along with his dining room and bedroom, had become his entire world, and waited for the kind young friend who was giving back to him the world he had once known. His lawyer was coming from New York in three days, and there was the matter of the codicil to his will. But—the Senator stirred impatiently—this money matter was grubby; he had for Selig something rarer than money—a gift for a scholar.