Graemer was thoughtful.

"He's given me an idea," he announced suddenly. "Or perhaps it was
Tom's gossip about him. How'd you like to do an ingenue part like that
missing lady affair--start with your head over a garden wall--call it
'The Heart of a Boy,' say--fill it up with this stuff Hamilt calls
youth--"

Tommie absorbed his last pastry.

"I've just remembered the girl's name," he announced, wiping a crumb
from his moist lips. "It was Felicia something or other--sort of sad,
wasn't it?"

"Maybe it would have been sadder if she'd married him," suggested
Edwina ironically. "He is a grouch, you can't get around that."

And the grouch, striding briskly up the avenue, was trying to be fair.

"Poor old Tommie!" he thought ruefully, "I don't know why I should go
on hating him because he will blab--it's the nature o' the beast--that
stupid little much-divorced animal that married him--" he glared at
two innocent young shoppers who were passing, "Gad, women are such
sophisticated cows nowadays--" Spring always made him wretched, spring
always made him fretful, spring always sent him off for the woods
somewhere, any woods so long as it was woods. He pondered over whether
he could get away Friday or would have to wait till Saturday morning,
and eventually decided on Saturday, consulting a memorandum book
scowlingly as he did so, jotting down appointments. He noted that he
would have to be in his office at five o'clock on Friday. Somebody or