Arnaud Hallet appeared for dinner the evening after Linda's arrival; a quiet man with his youth lost, slightly stooped shoulders, crumpled shoes and a green cloth bag. But he had a memorable voice and an easy distinction of manner; in addition to these she discovered, at the table, a lighter amusing sense of the absurd. She watched him—as he poured the sherry from a decanter with a silver label hung on a chain—with a feeling of mild approbation. On the whole he was nice but uninteresting. What a different man from Pleydon!

The days passed in a pleasant deliberation, with Arnaud Hallet constantly about the house or garden, while Linda's thoughts continually returned to the sculptor. He was clearer than the actuality of her mother and the Feldts or the recreated image of her father. At times she was thrilled by the familiar obscure sense of music, of longing slowly translated into happiness. Then more actual problems would envelop her in doubt. Mostly she was confused—in her cool material necessity for understanding—by the temper of her feeling for Dodge Pleydon. Linda wondered if this were love. Perhaps, when she saw him again, she'd be able to decide. Then she remembered promising to let him know if she changed her address. It was possible that already he had called at the Feldts', or written, and that her mother had refused to inform him where she had gone.

Linda had been at the Lowries' two weeks now, but they were acutely distressed when she suggested that her visit was unreasonably prolonged. “My dear,” they protested together, “we hoped you'd stay the summer. Bartram's girl! Unless, of course, it is dull with us. Something brighter must be arranged. No doubt we have only thought of our own pleasure in having you.”

Linda replied honestly that she enjoyed being with them extremely. Her mother's dislike, the heavy luxury of the Feldt apartment, held little attraction for her. Then, too, losing the sense of the bareness of the house Hallet Lowrie had built for his French wife, she began to find it surprisingly appealing.

Her mind returned to her promise to Pleydon. She told herself that probably he had forgotten her existence, but she had a strong unreasoning conviction that this was not so. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to write him and, almost before she was aware of the intention, she had put “Dear Mr. Pleydon” at the head of a sheet of note-paper.

I promised to let you know in the spring when you came back from South America where I was. I did not think I would have to do it, but here I am in Philadelphia with my father's sisters. I do not know just how long for, but a month, anyhow. It is very quiet, but charming. I have the room that was my father's when he was young, and look out of the window like he must have. If you should come to Philadelphia my aunts ask me to say that they would be glad to have you for dinner. This is how you get here....

Very sincerely,

LINDA CONDON.

She walked to a street crossing, where she dropped the envelope into a letter-box on a lamppost, and returned to find Arnaud Hallet waiting for her. He said:

“Everyone agrees I'm serious, but actually you are worse than the Assembly.” They went through the dining-room to the garden, and sat on the stone step of a deep window. It was quite late, perhaps eleven o'clock, and the fireflies, slowly rising into the night, had vanished. Linda was cool and remote and grave, silently repeating and weighing the phrases of her letter to Pleydon.

She realized that Arnaud Hallet was coming to like her a very great deal; but she gave this only the slightest attention. She liked him, really, and that dismissed him from serious consideration. Anyhow, in spite of the perfection of his manner, Arnaud's careless dress displeased her: his shoes and the shoulders of his coat were perpetually dusty, and his hair, growing scant, was always ruffled. Linda understood that he was highly intellectual, and frequently contributed historical and genealogical papers to societies and bulletins, but compared with Dodge Pleydon's brilliant personality and reputation, Pleydon surrounded by the Susanna Nodas of life, Arnaud was as dingy as his shoes.

She wondered idly when the latter would actually try to love her. He was holding her hand and it might well be to-night. Linda decided that he would do it delicately; and when, almost immediately, he kissed her, she was undisturbed. No, surprisingly, it had been quite pleasant. He hadn't mussed her ribbons, nor her spirit, a particle. In addition he did not at once become impossible and urgently sentimental; there was even a shade of amusement on his heavy face.

“You appear to take a lot for granted,” he complained.

“I'd been wondering when it would happen,” she admitted coolly.

“It always does, then?”

“Usually I stop it,” she continued. “I don't believe I'll ever like being kissed. Can you tell me why? No one ever has; they all think they can bring me around to it.”

“And to them,” he added.

“But they end by being furious at me. I've been sworn at and called dreadful names. Sometimes they're only silly. One cried; I hated that the most.”

“Do you mean that you were sorry for him?”

“Oh, dear, no. Why should I be? He looked so odious all smeared with tears.”

Arnaud Hallet returned promptly: “Linda, you're a little beast.” To counteract his rude speech he kissed her again. “This,” he said with less security, “threatens to become a habit. I thought, at forty-five, that I was safely by the island of sirens, but I'll be on the rocks before I know it.”

She laughed with the cool remoteness of running water.

“I wonder you haven't been murdered,” he proceeded, “in a moonless garden by an elderly lawyer. Do you ever think of the lyric day when, preceded by a flock of bridesmaids and other flowery pagan truck, you'll meet justice?”

“Marriage?” she asked. “But of course. I have everything perfectly planned—”

“Then, my dear Linda, describe him.”

“Very straight,” she said, “with beautiful polished shoes and brushed hair.”

“You ought to have no trouble finding that. Any number of my friends have one—to open the door and take your things. I might arrange a very satisfactory introduction for everybody concerned—a steady man well on his way to preside over the pantry and table.”

“You're not as funny as usual,” Linda decided critically. “That, too, disturbs me,” he replied. “It looks even more unpromising for the near future.”

---