Knowing that Leslie would have no scruples about barring them both from further part in the picnic, they sullenly subsided. Dulcie freezingly accepted the list of eatables Natalie had made up and temporary peace was restored. Natalie bade Leslie a very cool goodnight a little later when the session broke up. She was hurt and angry over Leslie's brutal frankness. For an instant she wished she might be entirely free of Leslie's domineering sway. It was one of those moments when a faint stirring of a better nature made her long for harmony and peace. Her ignoble side was too greatly in the ascendency however to make her distaste for Leslie Cairns and her tyranny more than momentary. CHAPTER XII. A RECKLESS DRIVER. "The Sans have certainly had one beautiful day for their picnic, but if they don't put in an appearance pretty soon they will be caught in a rain." Seated beside Marjorie and Lucy Warner in the big porch swing, Jerry squinted at the rapidly clouding sky. While the day had been warm and moderately sunny, dark clouds had been looming up here and there in the sky since four o'clock. Scattered at first, they had gradually banked solidly in the west, obscuring the sunset and promising rain before nightfall. "What time is it, Jeremiah?" asked Lucy. "I promised to meet Katherine here on the veranda at five-thirty. She left her handbag at Lillian's last night and we are going to walk over there before dinner." "Why, Luciferous!" Jerry fixed Lucy with an amazed eye. "Can I believe that you and your precious watch have parted company even for a brief half hour!" Lucy giggled. Her extreme fondness for the wrist watch Ronny had given her was well known to her chums. "I broke the crystal," she confessed. "It dropped from my hand the other night on the lavatory floor. I miss it terribly you had better believe. It will be fixed tomorrow, thank goodness." "Surprised at such carelessness. Ahem!" Jerry teased. "If you want to know the time, it is twenty-seven minutes past five. Your kindred spirit should appear in three minutes." "Here she comes now." Marjorie had spied Katherine coming up the walk. "Did you think I was going to be late?" Katherine called from the bottom step. "I had an awful time looking up some data at the library. I just left there and ran half the way here. It looks like rain, but, if we walk fast, we can go over to Wenderblatt's and back before it starts. Want to go along, Marjorie and Jerry?" "I might as well. I've nothing else to do before dinner. Come on, Jeremiah. A fast walk before dinner will be a splendid appetizer." Marjorie rose from the swing and brushed down her wrinkled linen skirt. "Don't need an appetizer. I'm famished now. Lead me on. I may lose half a pound. That will be something attempted, something done, as our friend H. W. Longfellow sagely remarks in the 'Village Blacksmith.'"