As Randolph entered, Foster looked up from under his green shade with an expression of perplexity. "Have I dropped a stitch here or not?" he asked. "I wish you knew something about knitting; I don't like to call Medora or one of the girls away up here to straighten me out. Look; what do you think?" "They count all right," said Randolph; and he sat down on the couch opposite. "I've brought a book." "I hope it's poetry!" said Foster, with a fierce promptness. "I hope it's about Adonis, or Thammuz, whose mishap 'in Lebanon' set all the Syrian females a-going. I could stand a lot more of that,--or perhaps I couldn't!" "Why, Joe, what's gone wrong?" "I suppose you know that your young friend got up a great to-do for us the other evening?" "Yes; I've heard something about it." He looked at Foster's drawn face, and heard with surprise the rasping note in his voice. "Was it as bad as that?" Foster drew his shade down farther over his eyes and clashed his needles together. "I remember how, when I was in Florence, we went out to a religious festival one evening at some small hill-town near by. This was twenty years ago, when I _could_ travel. There was a kind of grotto in the church, under the high altar; and in the grotto was a full-sized figure of a dead man, carved and painted--and covered with wounds; and round that figure half the women and girls of the town were collected, stroking, kissing ... Adonis all over again!" "Oh, come, Joe; don't get morbid." Foster lifted one shoulder. "Well, the young fellow began by roaring through the house like a bull of Bashan, and he ended by toppling over like a little wobbly calf." He spoke like a man who had imagined a full measure of physical powers and had envied them ... had been exasperated by the exuberant presentation of them... had felt a series of contradictory emotions when they had seemed to fail.... "It was only a moment of dizziness," said Randolph. "I imagine he was fairly himself next day." "Well, I've heard too much about it. Medora came up here and----" "Need we go into that?" "There were plenty more to help," Foster went on doggedly. "One dear creature, who was old enough to be more cautious, spilt water down the whole front of her dress----" "I expect," said Randolph, "that the poor chap has been overworked; or careless about his meals; or worried in his classes--for he may not be fully settled in his new place; or some emotional strain may have set itself up----" "I vote for the emotional strain," said Foster bluntly.