in his big firm one. Then she listened to him talk, as he strode about
the platform, boyishly shaking back the hair that fell across his
forehead. After that he walked to the hotel with them, through
dazzling seas of perfume, and of flowers, under the enchanted shifting
green of great trees,--or so Margaret thought. There was a plunge from
the hot street into the awning cool gloom of the hotel, and then a
luncheon, when the happy steady murmur from their own table seemed
echoed by the murmurs clink and stir and laughter all about them,
and accented by the not-too-close music from the band.

Doctor Tension was everything charming, Margaret thought, instantly
drawn by the unaffected, friendly manner, and watching the interested
gleam of his blue eyes and the white flash of his teeth He was a
gentleman, to begin with; distinguished at thirty-two in his chosen
work; big and well-built, without suggesting the athlete, of an old
and honored American family, and the only son of a rich--and
eccentric--old doctor whom Mrs. Carr-Bolt chanced to know.

He was frankly delighted at the chance that had brought him in contact
with these charming people; and as Mrs. Carr-Bolt took an instant
fancy to him, and as he was staying at their own hotel, they saw him
after that every day, and several times a day. Margaret would come
down the great sun-bathed stairway in the morning to find him
patiently waiting in a porch chair. Her heart would give a great leap
-half joy, half new strange pain, as she recognized him. There would
be time for a chat over their fruit and eggs before Mr. Carr-Bolt
came down, all ready for a motor-trip, or Mrs. Carr-Bolt, swathed in
cream-colored coat and flying veils, joined them with an approving
"Good-morning."