old book. The old gentleman stood at the door a long time before he
interrupted them and after Andrew had gone down to put Caroline into her
motorcar, which had been waiting for hours, he lingered at the window
looking out into the dusk.

"'For love is as strong as death,'" he quoted to himself as he turned to
the table and slowly closed the book and returned it to its place. "'And
many waters can not quench love, neither can the floods drown it.'"
"Solomon was very great--and human," he further observed.

Then after absorbing an hour or two of communion with some musty old
papers and a tattered volume of uncertain age, the major was interrupted
by Mrs. Matilda as she came in from her drive. She was a vision in her
soft gray reception gown, and her gray hat, with its white velvet rose,
was tipped over her face at an angle that denoted the spirit of
adventure.

"I'm so glad to get back, Major," she said as she stood and regarded him
with affection beaming in her bright eyes. "Sometimes I hurry home to be
sure you are safe here. I don't see you as much as I do out at Seven Oaks
and I'm lonely going places away from you."

"Don't you know it isn't the style any longer for a woman to carry her
husband in her pocket, Matilda," he answered. "What would Mrs. Cherry
Lawrence think of you?"

Mrs. Buchanan laughed as she seated herself by him for the moment.
"I've just come from Milly's," she said. "I left Caroline there. And
Hobson was with her; they had been out motoring on the River Road. Do
you suppose--it looks as if perhaps--?"