Presently she came put with an empty glass bowl, which she set down beside him. He followed her down into the tipsy brick paths, under the willows, while she gathered velvet wallflowers to fill it. "You're very clever at this village sort of thing," the writer said. "And I must say I like it myself. Old-fashioned street full of kids streaming in for ice-cream, garden with stocks and what-you-call-'ems all blooming together--you know, I had a sort of notion you weren't half as nice as you are!" Martie laughed, pleased at the frank audacity. "You fit into it all so pleasantly!" he expanded his thought. "I don't know why you say that," she answered, surprised. "I was born here. I belong here. I lived for years in New York without being able to demonstrate that I could do anything better!" "Dryden has a great idea of what you can do," Silver suggested. "Oh, well, John!" she laughed maternally. "If you've been listening to John--" "I've HAD to listen to him," the novelist said mildly. "Tell me," she said suddenly, "I don't want to say the awkward thing to him--has he got his divorce?" He looked at her, amazed. "Don't you correspond?" "Twice a year, perhaps." Dean Silver flung away his cigarette, and sunk his hands in his pockets. "Certainly he's divorced," he said briefly. Martie's heart thumped. The flowers in her hands, she stood staring away from him, unseeing. "I hope you'll forgive me--I feel like a fool touching the thing at all," Dean Silver said, after a silence. "But I thought that there was some sort of an understanding between you." "Oh, no!" Martie half-whispered, with a fluttered breath. "There isn't?" he asked, in a tone of keen protest. "Oh, no!" The novelist whistled a few notes and shrugged his shoulders. "Well, then, there isn't," he said philosophically. He stooped to pick a fragrant spike of mignonette, and put it in his buttonhole. When he began speaking again, he did not look at Martie. "A few of us have come to know Dryden well, this winter," he said gravely. "He's a rare fellow, Mrs. Bannister--a big man, and he's got his field to himself. You wouldn't believe me if I told you what a fuss they've been making over him--back there, and how little it matters to him. He's going a long way. You--you've got to be kind to him, my dear girl." "I'm a Catholic, and he's a divorced man," Martie said, turning troubled eyes toward him. "I never thought of him in that way!" Dean Silver raised his eyebrows. "People are still believing that sort of thing, are they?" "Only about a hundred million!" she answered, drily in her turn. The man laughed shortly. "Sweet complication!" he observed. "More than that," Martie said hurriedly, "I'm engaged to be married to the president of the bank here, in about six weeks!" Their eyes met steadily for a full minute. "I devoutly trust you are not serious?" said Dean Silver then. "Oh, but I am!" she said, with a nervous laugh.