tired, and she's beginning to look it. Just lean back,
Fanny, and let the green of this park soak in. At that, it
isn't so awfully green, when you get right close, except
that one stretch of meadow. Kind of ugly, Central Park,
isn't it? Bare."

Fanny sat forward. There was more sparkle in her face than
at any time during the drive. They were skimming along
those green-shaded drives that are so sophisticatedly
sylvan.

"I used to think it was bare, too, and bony as an old maid,
with no soft cuddly places like the parks at home; no
gracious green stretches, and no rose gardens. But somehow,
it grows on you. The reticence of it. And that stretch of
meadow near the Mall, in the late afternoon, with the mist
on it, and the sky faintly pink, and that electric sign--
Somebody's Tires or other--winking off and on--"

"You're a queer child," interrupted Fenger. "As wooden as
an Indian while talking about a million-a-year deal, and
lyrical over a combination of electric sign, sunset, and
moth-eaten park. Oh, well, perhaps that's what makes you as
you are."

Even Ella looked a little startled at that.

They had tea at Claremont, at a table overlooking the river
and the Palisades. Fenger was the kind of man to whom
waiters always give a table overlooking anything that should