"It is the first thunder-storm of the season," Mary said. "It will wake up the world." "In the South," Roger said, "the world is awake. You should see our gardens." "I wish I could; Cousin Patty asked me to come." "Will you?" eagerly. "There's my work." "Take a holiday, and let me show you the pines." Porter broke in impatiently, almost insolently. "Mary needs companionship, not pines. I think she should go to Constance. Leila and the General will go over as they planned in May, and the Jeliffes----" "There's more than a month before May--which she could spend with us." Porter stared. This was a new Roger, an insistent, demanding Roger. He spoke coldly. "Constance wants Mary at once. I don't think we should say anything to dissuade her. Aunt Isabelle and I can take her over." And now Mary's head went up. "I haven't decided, Porter." She was fighting for freedom. "But Constance needs you, Mary--and you need her." "Oh, no," Mary said, brokenly, "Constance doesn't need me. She has Gordon and the baby. Nobody needs me--now." Roger saw the quick blood flame in Porter's face. He felt it flame in his own. And just for one fleeting moment, over the bowed head of the girl, the challenging eyes of the two men met. Aunt Frances, who came over with Grace in the afternoon, went home in a high state of indignation. "Why Patty Carew and Roger Poole should take possession of Mary in that fashion," she said to her daughter at dinner, "is beyond me. They don't belong there, and it would have been in better taste to leave at such a time." "Mary begged Cousin Patty to stay," Grace said, "and as for Roger Poole, he has simply made Mary over. She has been like a stone image until to-day." "I don't see any difference," Aunt Frances said. "What do you mean, Grace?" "Oh, her eyes and the color in her cheeks, and the way she does her hair." "The way she does her hair?" Aunt Frances laid down her fork and stared. "Yes. Since the awful news came, Mary has seemed to lose interest in everything. She adored Barry, and she's never going to get over it--not entirely. I miss the old Mary." Grace stopped to steady her voice. "But when I went up with her to her room to talk to her while she dressed for dinner, she put up her hair in that pretty boyish way that she used to wear it, and it was all for Roger Poole." "Why not for Porter?" "Because she hasn't cared how she looked, and Porter has been there every day. He has been there too often." "Do you think Roger will try to get her to marry him?" "Who knows? He's dead in love with her. But he looks upon her as too rare for the life he leads. That's the trouble with men. They are afraid they can't make the right woman happy, so they ask the wrong one. Now if we women could do the proposing----" "Grace!"