"I'd like to know that artist fellow better," was the thought upon which
he returned at length to the things of practical life. "I wonder if
Sophia would mind him for a bit--?" He rose with the sound of the gong,
brushing the ashes from his speckled waistcoat. He pulled the waistcoat
down. He was slim and spare in figure, active in his movements. In the
dim light, but for that silvery moustache, he might easily have passed
for a man of forty. "I'll suggest it to her anyhow," he decided on his
way upstairs to dress. His thought really was that Sanderson could
probably explain his world of things he had always felt about--trees. A
man who could paint the soul of a cedar in that way must know it all.

"Why not?" she gave her verdict later over the bread-and-butter pudding;
"unless you think he'd find it dull without companions."

"He would paint all day in the Forest, dear. I'd like to pick his brains
a bit, too, if I could manage it."

"You can manage anything, David," was what she answered, for this
elderly childless couple used an affectionate politeness long since
deemed old-fashioned. The remark, however, displeased her, making her
feel uneasy, and she did not notice his rejoinder, smiling his pleasure
and content--"Except yourself and our bank account, my dear." This
passion of his for trees was of old a bone of contention, though very
mild contention. It frightened her. That was the truth. The Bible, her
Baedeker for earth and heaven, did not mention it. Her husband, while
humoring her, could never alter that instinctive dread she had. He
soothed, but never changed her. She liked the woods, perhaps as spots
for shade and picnics, but she could not, as he did, love them.

And after dinner, with a lamp beside the open window, he read aloud from