“Oh, go to blazes! You could if you wanted to. Look here, I lay you any odds you like that you’ve been caught yourself! You’ve met some girl here and she’s gone home and you’re tagging after! You ought to have more pride, Eth!” “I dare say, Mr. Solomon. By the way, I don’t want to hurry you, but it’s nearly half after two, and――――” “The deuce it is!” Vincent leaped to his feet and Ethan laughed loudly and cruelly. Vincent viewed him in amazement a moment and then joined. “Talk about tagging!” chuckled Ethan. “You haven’t seen her, you old scoffer,” responded his friend. At a little after three Ethan tossed his luggage into the car, climbed in beside the unruffled Farrell and swung the big blue monster toward Boston. And while it ate up the long miles Ethan, his hands on the wheel, scowled miserably ahead and honestly strove to forget that he had ever stumbled into Arcady. [Illustration] XI. A few days later Ethan walked into the office of the law firm in Providence, hung his hat on a hook in the closet and blandly inquired for his desk. The members of the firm discussed it later in the privacy of the inner office. “Looks as though he might be in earnest, anyway,” suggested the senior. “Apparently not afraid of work, eh?” “Something funny about it,” replied the junior, who was a bit of a pessimist. “It isn’t like a fellow of his sort to give up his summer and buckle down to reading law in July.” He shook his head with misgivings. “It won’t last, mark my word.” But it did. Business was slack throughout the hot weather and Ethan had plenty of time for reading; and he made the most of it. Several letters came from Vincent reminding him of his promise and urging him to come down to Stillhaven for a while. But always Ethan pleaded press of duties, until Vincent, whose own law shingle had been hanging out for a year and who had yet to find business pressing, felt more convinced than ever that his friend had, to use his own expression, “come a cropper somehow!” [Illustration] In September Vincent ran down and spent Sunday. Ethan didn’t press him to come again, for his conversation was not of a sort calculated to reconcile a disappointed lover to his lot. The Devereuxs were still at Riverdell, but were returning to their Boston apartments the last of the month. “She hasn’t forgiven you for not calling,” warned Vincent, “and you’ll have to eat dirt when you do see her, old chap.” Ethan expressed entire willingness to grovel, but flatly refused to set a date for the proceedings. Vincent departed somewhat huffed, and for some time there was a perceptible coolness between them. Ethan regretted it, but he wasn’t ready yet to trust himself in the rôle of Vincent’s friend.