watery pretense of enthusiasm into his voice.

She had done her duty by his dreadful, impossible family. She
passed glibly to other subjects. He was glad she had had the
ladylike tact not to look at him during the episode; he wouldn't
have liked any human being to see the look he knew his face was
wearing.

In the press of agitating events, both forgot the incident--for
the time.





CHAPTER XXI

A SWOOP AND A SCRATCH


When Molly Stillwater heard that Margaret and her "wild man" had
gone into the woods for their honeymoon she said: "Rita's got to
tame him and train him for human society. So she's taken him where
there are no neighbors to hear him scream as--as--" Molly cast
about in her stock of slang for a phrase that was vigorous enough
--"as she 'puts the boots' to him."

It was a shrewd guess; Margaret had decided that she could do more
toward "civilizing" him in those few first weeks and in solitude
than in years of teaching at odd times. In China, at the marriage