During this conversation, Chase, in the dining-room, had risen and given a stretch, with his long arms out horizontally. He was beginning to feel bored by the talk of Anthony Etheridge, "the ancient swell," as he called him. In addition, he had a vision of finishing this second cigar in a comfortable chair in the parlor (for Mrs. Franklin had no objection to cigar smoke), with Ruth near by; for it always amused him to hear his wife laugh and talk. The commodore, meanwhile, having assigned to himself from the day of the wedding the task of "helping to civilize the Bubble," never lost an opportunity to tell him stories from his own more cultivated experience--"stories that will give him ideas, and, by Jove! phrases, too. He needs 'em!" He had risen also. But he now detained his companion until he had finished what he was saying. "So there you have the reason, Mr. Chase, why _I_ didn't marry. I simply couldn't endure the idea of an old woman's face opposite mine at table year after year; for our women grow old so soon! Now you, sir, have shown the highest wisdom in this respect. I congratulate you." "I don't know about that," answered Chase, as he turned towards the door. "Ruth will have an old man's face opposite _her_ before very long, won't she?" "Not at all, my good friend; not at all. Men have no age. At least, they _need_ not have it," answered Etheridge, bringing forward with joviality his favorite axiom. Cordial greetings took place between Chase and Walter Willoughby. "Your uncles weren't sure you would still be here," Chase remarked. "They thought perhaps you wouldn't stay." "I shall stay awhile--outstay you, probably," answered Walter, smiling. "I can't imagine that you'll stand it long." "Doing nothing, you mean? Well, it's true I have never loafed _much_," Chase admitted. "You loafed all summer in Europe," the younger man replied, and his voice had almost an intonation of complaint. He perceived this himself, and smiled a little over it. "So that was loafing, was it," commented Ruth, in a musing tone--"catching trains and coaches on a full run, seeing three or four cantons, half a dozen towns, two passes, and several ranges of mountains every day?" All laughed, and Mrs. Kip said: "Did you rush along at that rate? That was baddish. There's no hurry _here_; that's one good thing. The laziest place! We must get up a boat-ride soon, Ruth. Boat-drive, I mean." Mrs. Franklin meanwhile, rising to get something, knocked over accidentally the lamplighters which she had just completed, and Chase, who saw it, jumped up to help her collect them. "Why, how many you have made!" he said, gallantly. She was not pleased by this innocent speech; she had no desire to be patted on the back, as it were, about her curled strips of paper; she curled them to please herself. She made no reply, save that her nose looked unusually aquiline.