"Louis—I'm terribly disappointed in you—"
"I'm disappointed, too. Until you spoke to me so plainly a few minutes ago I never clearly understood that I couldn't marry Stephanie. When I thought of it at all it seemed a vague and shadowy something, too far away to be really impending—threatening—like death—"
[Illustration: "'Come on, Alice, if you're going to scrub before luncheon.'">[
"Oh!" cried his sister in revolt. "I shall make it my business to see that Stephanie understands you thoroughly before this goes any farther—"
"I wish to heaven you would," he said, so heartily that his sister, exasperated, turned her back and marched away to the nursery.
When he went out to the tennis court he found Stephanie idly batting the balls across the net with Cameron, who, being dummy, had strolled down to gibe at her—a pastime both enjoyed:
"Here comes your Alonzo, fair lady—lightly skipping o'er the green—yes, yes—wearing the panties of his brother-in-law!" He fell into an admiring attitude and contemplated Neville with a simper, his ruddy, prematurely bald head cocked on one side:
"Oh, girls! Ain't he just grand!" he exclaimed. "Honest, Stephanie, your young man has me in the ditch with two blow-outs and the gas afire!"
"Get out of this court," said Neville, hurling a ball at him.
"Isn't he the jealous old thing!" cried Cameron, flouncing away with an affectation of feminine indignation. And presently the tennis balls began to fly, and the little jets of white dust floated away on the June breeze.