"I?" stammered Richard. "I?" With a wild little lunge he commenced the attack. "My! But you're bumpy!" winced Daphne. "Don't you think that maybe it would be better to use the bristly side of the brush?" "Oh, I say!" apologized Richard, "I _am_ rattled!" With reconstructed acumen he resumed the task. "Oh, _that's_ nice," purred Daphne. "In a book I was reading there was the funniest thing--the husband in it was always brushing his wife's hair." "How funny!" acquiesced Richard. "Oh--awfully funny," purred Daphne. "I [231] guess there's a good deal more to this marriage-business," she observed sagely, "than some of us had supposed." "Very likely," admitted Richard. "Less nonsense, I mean," reflected Daphne. "But more hair-brushing--and putting away winter clothes, and----" "Oh, I wish I had a wife," hooted Richard, "to put away my winter clothes!" "I wish you had!" laughed Daphne. For the first time her mind went back to her little college tragedy with purely historical interest instead of pain. "Oh, I wish you had! That dress suit you bumped my nose against smelled so strong of camphor--I couldn't get it out of my nostrils all winter! Why, we're both laughing!" she exclaimed with sudden astonishment. "Why shouldn't we?" argued Richard Wiltoner. In the midst of the reflection a most curious expression flashed across his eyes. "_Wouldn't_ it have been funny," he said, "if you _had_ married me--that time I asked you?" "We'd have fought like cats and dogs, I suppose," said Daphne. [232] "But at least," laughed Richard, "you would have been putting away my winter clothes--just about now." "And you--" retaliated Daphne. "I'm already--brushing your hair!" laughed the boy. "Let's never marry anybody," suggested Daphne. "Not for years!" "I can't!" said Richard. "Not for years and years and years!--not to make a girl comfortable, I mean! There won't be any money. . . . There's my brother, you know; and I've got so many animals. . . . It's queer about animals," he stammered, "you--you can't fail the old ones when they're old, and you can't fail the young ones when they're young. It's like any other kind of family, I suppose," he smiled. "All fun and all responsibility! But never any time! And never any money!" Quite furiously he resumed the hair-brushing. "Oh, after all," he remarked, "_this_ isn't so awfully different from getting the snarls out of Brainstorm's mane. Only Brainstorm's mane is brown. And yours?" With a cry of sheer joy he stood off and surveyed his handiwork. "And yours--" he laughed, [233] "looks like a bunch of short-stemmed jonquils!" "Oh, how--awful!" cried Daphne. "No, it's cunning," flushed Richard. A little bit teased by the laugh, Daphne met her own embarrassment with a fresh command. "Oh, please--run quick now," she begged, "and tell my people as you call them--that a Lady-Who-Has-Been-Long-Away--sends her love and is home again!"