plainly visible. He thought of the "palatial residence" rumour
ascribed to Arnold Sherman in Boston, and stroked his chin
nervously with his sunburnt fingers. Then he doubled up his
fist and struck it smartly on the gate-post.

"Theodora needn't think she is going to jilt me in this
fashion, after keeping company with me for fifteen years," he
said. "I'LL have something to say to it, Arnold Sherman or
no Arnold Sherman. The impudence of the puppy!"

The next morning Ludovic drove to Carmody and engaged Joshua
Pye to come and paint his house, and that evening, although he
was not due till Saturday night, he went down to see Theodora.

Arnold Sherman was there before him, and was actually sitting
in Ludovic's own prescriptive chair. Ludovic had to deposit
himself in Theodora's new wicker rocker, where he looked and
felt lamentably out of place.

If Theodora felt the situation to be awkward, she carried it
off superbly. She had never looked handsomer, and Ludovic
perceived that she wore her second best silk dress. He
wondered miserably if she had donned it in expectation of his
rival's call. She had never put on silk dresses for him.
Ludovic had always been the meekest and mildest of mortals,
but he felt quite murderous as he sat mutely there and
listened to Arnold Sherman's polished conversation.

"You should just have been here to see him glowering,"
Theodora told the delighted Anne the next day. "It may be