"I may bore _you_, my dear Arnold," said the other, rising, "but you
never bored me in your life, and I've known you from childhood."

To which entirely benevolent speech, Arnold returned nothing but
the uneasy shrug and resentful look of one baffled by a hostile
demonstration too subtle for his powers of self-defense. He picked up
the chair he had thrown over, and waited sulkily till the others were
in the high-ceilinged living-room before he joined them. Then when
Morrison, in answer to a request from his hostess and old friend, sat
down to the piano and began to play a piece of modern, plaintive, very
wandering and chromatic music, the younger man drew Sylvia out on the
wide, moon-lighted veranda.

"Morrison is the very devil for making you want to punch his head, and
yet not giving you a decent excuse. I declare, Sylvia, I don't know
but that what I like best of all about you is the way you steer clear
of him. He's opening up on you too. Maybe you didn't happen to notice
... at the dinner-table? It wasn't much, but I spotted it for a
beginning. I know old Felix, a few." Sylvia felt uneasy at the
recurrence of this topic, and cast about for something to turn the
conversation. "Oh, Arnold," she began, rather at random, "whatever
became of Professor Saunders? I've thought about him several times
since I've been here, but I've forgotten to ask you or Tantine. He was
my little-girl admiration, you know."

Arnold smoked for a moment before answering. Then, "Well, I wouldn't
ask Madrina about him, if I were you. He's not one of her successes.
He wouldn't stay put."

Sylvia scented something uncomfortable, and regretted having