and went tearing up the stairs to his room. I heard him splashing like a
seal in his bath. Presently he came out, freshly attired and went away
down the road, in the opposite direction from that in which lay the
house beyond the hedge.

Dahlia came over at twilight that evening--to bring me a great bunch of
golden-glow. She was captivatingly arrayed in blue. She remained for an
hour or so. When she went away the Skeptic walked home with her. He was
forced to do it. The Philosopher had disappeared again, quite without
warning, some twenty minutes earlier.

She came over the next afternoon. On the day following she practically
took up her residence with us. I thought of inviting her to bring a
trunk and occupy the white room. On the fourth night I accidentally
overheard a brief but pregnant colloquy which took place just inside the
library door, toward the last of the evening.

"You've got to take her home to-night, old man."

"I won't." It was the Philosopher.

"You've got to. It's your turn. No shirking."

"I'll be hanged if I will."

"I'll be hanged if _I_ will. There's a limit."

"I'd always supposed there was. There doesn't seem to be."

"Come along--stand up to it like a man. It's up to you to-night. She