never appreciated by a man until he's obliged to sit on the other
side of the fireplace? I wish we were driving away out into the
country. I have an unusual hankering to stand on the bank of a huge
lake and watch the moonlight on the water."

Joan was singing again. The trees in the Park were bespattered with
young leaves.

Palgrave controlled an ardent desire to touch with his lips that
cool white shoulder from which the cloak had slipped. It was
extraordinary how this mere girl inflamed him. Alice--Alice-Sit-by-
the-Fire! She seemed oddly like some other man's wife, these days.

"Suppose I tell your man to drive out of the city beyond this rabble
of bricks and mortar?"

But Joan went on singing. Spring was in her blood. How fast the car
was moving, and those young clouds.

Palgrave helped her out with a hot hand.

She opened the door with her latch-key. "Thank you, Gilbert," she
said. "Good night."

But Palgrave followed her in. "Don't you think I've earned the right
to one cigarette?" He threw his coat into a chair in the hall and
hung his hat on the longest point of an antler. It was a new thing
for this much flattered man to ask for favors. This young thing's
exultant youth made him feel old and rather humble.