"I am going to tie it with gold ribbon," she said. "Tibbs got the laurel for me."
"Who is it for?"
"It may be for—Pan," Marie-Louise wore an air of mystery, "and it may not."
She stuck it later on Pan's head, but the effect did not please her. "You are nothing but a grinning old marble doll," she told him, and Anne laughed at her.
"I hoped some day you'd find that out."
Richard, arriving late that afternoon, found Mrs. Austin on the terrace. "The young people are in the garden," she said; "will you hunt them up?"
"I want to talk to Dr. Austin, if I may."
"He's in the house. He was called to the telephone."
Austin, coming out, found his young assistant on the portico.
"Can you give me a second, sir? I've a letter from mother. There's a lot of sickness at Crossroads. And I feel responsible."
