her trilling, in and out through open windows, all down the long wing
that was hers. And he heard her singing in the patio garden, where,
also, she desisted long enough to quarrel with her Airedale and scold
the collie pup unholily attracted by the red-orange, divers-finned,
and many-tailed Japanese goldfish in the fountain basin.

He was aware of pleasure that she was awake. It was a pleasure that
never staled. Always, up himself for hours, he had a sense that the
Big House was not really awake until he heard Paula's morning song
across the patio.

But having tasted the pleasure of knowing her to be awake, Dick, as
usual, forgot her in his own affairs. She went out of his
consciousness as he became absorbed again in the Iowa statistics on
hog cholera.

"Good morning, Merry Gentleman," was the next he heard, always
adorable music in his ears; and Paula flowed in upon him, all softness
of morning kimono and stayless body, as her arm passed around his neck
and she perched, half in his arms, on one accommodating knee of his.
And he pressed her, and advertised his awareness of her existence and
nearness, although his eyes lingered a full half minute longer on the
totals of results of Professor Kenealy's hog inoculations on Simon
Jones' farm at Washington, Iowa.

"My!" she protested. "You are too fortunate. You are sated with
riches. Here is your Lady Boy, your 'little haughty moon,' and you
haven't even said, 'Good morning, Little Lady Boy, was your sleep
sweet and gentle?'"