"I told Dr. Young I wanted to play with you and your father, but he said Mr. Barry and I didn't know how to play."
"He was quite right."
King regarded his companion's averted, charming head with a pale smile. "You know," he remarked after a little, "we can love people while seeing their imperfections."
"Not I! I love only perfection."
King gave a noiseless whistle, and raised his eyebrows. "I'm so glad I'm perfect," he said at last.
Linda looked around at him slowly. How pale he was! Ripples of the flood of tenderness that had bathed the thought of her father flowed grudgingly toward her companion, as he stood there in the long twilight, regarding her with lack-lustre eyes.
"There are pines outside of Colorado," she remarked.
"That's what Mrs. Porter says."
"Mrs. Porter?" Linda echoed him with interest; "but she has left town. I went to the studio yesterday, and she's gone; gone to Maine without letting me know."
"You've been pretty hard to locate, remember. She told me she was going."