Alys burst into a ringing peal of laughter. "Really, Sarah, I wonder you are not already famous as a fiction-story writer. How much longer do you propose to stick to prosaic journalism?" "I've had two stories accepted by leading magazines this month, I'd have you know; but your memory is short if you think journalism prosaic. It germinates pretty nearly all the fiction microbes that later ravage the popular magazines. That was what was the matter with the old magazines--no modern symptoms, let alone fevers--only antidotes that somehow didn't work. But if you won't tell, Alys, I'll find out for myself. If I don't find out, Jim Broderick will, and I'd give my eyes to get ahead of him. But we've got to catch our train, girls." They took the short cut through the hall of the dwelling, and as they passed the open door of the living-room, Miss Lauretta Lea exclaimed with pleasure at its conceit of a cool green wood. Alys could do no less than invite them in. While the three other reporters were walking about observing the charming room in detail and envying its owner, Miss Sarah Austin walked directly over to a framed photograph of Dwight Rush that stood on a side-table. He had given it to Mrs. Crumley; and Alys, who spared her mother all unnecessary anxiety, had not yet conceived a logical excuse for its removal. "Whom have we here?" demanded the searching young realist. "Don't tell me, Alys, that here is the secret of your desertion of the New York press. I'd forgive you, though, for he is precisely the type I most admire. The modern Samson before Delilah cuts off what little hair his barber leaves. But the same old Samson looking round for the same old Delilah--" "Really, Sarah, are you insinuating that I am a Delilah? That is too much!" Alys put her arm round Miss Austin's waist and smiled teasingly. "No wonder your newspaper stories are so bitingly realistic; the restraints you force upon your imagination must put it quite out of commission for the time being. That is Mr. Dwight Rush, quite a well known lawyer in Brabant already, although he has only been here about two years." "I thought you said all your young men had grown up in the community." "I had quite forgotten him." "Ha! Is he married?" "Oh, no. And he was born and brought up over in Rennselaerville, by the way, but went West to some college or university and practised out there for several years." "How old is he?" "Oh, about thirty-three or thirty-four." "Must have been away a good many years. Would return quite fresh--must have had a lot made over him here--looks clever and built for success--that concentrated driving type that always gets there--" "He goes very little into society and no one possibly could lionise him." "Is he interesting to talk to or just another specialist?" "That's about it. But he was more a friend of mother's than mine. That is her picture."