But the arrow glanced harmless. Joel's mood was abstracted. Not for some time had he put into practise his theories regarding uncooked food, and his rebellious appetite craved more stimulating fare. He munched his nuts with distracting memories of yesterday's pot roast. He found himself resenting Susan's eager compliance. She should have insisted on preparing him a good meal--good from her standpoint--and as a gentleman he could have done no less than show his appreciation by eating it. For once Joel had lost interest in his own eloquence. Inward voices were protesting against this return to the fare which had satisfied Father Adam. When he retired to the armchair, after dinner, and relapsed into a sulky silence, Susan remembered that the obligation to amuse him was also nominated in the bond. Luckily his tastes were literary, which rendered her task a simple one. Susan stepped into the tightly-closed, partially darkened parlor which never in the sultriest weather seemed wholly to lose the chill of its unwarmed winter days. The center of the room was occupied by a square table, on each corner of which lay a book, the four arranged with geometrical nicety. Susan was too familiar with Clematis traditions not to know that the books on the center-table were seldom of a sort one would care to open, but as she lifted the nearest volume and saw that it was a collections of poems, she felt a comforting certainty that luck was with her. "You're a great admirer of po'try, ain't you, Mr. Dale? I've always understood so." With an effort Joel roused himself. "Another has expressed my sentiments, Miss Fitzgerald. "Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound.'" "Then if you'd like, I'll read you a little so's to help pass the time." Susan seated herself near the window, cleared her throat and opening the volume at random, began in the self-conscious and unnatural voice characterizing ninety-nine people out of every hundred who attempt the reading of verse. "'O there's a heart for every one If every one could find it. Then up and seek, ere youth is gone, Whate'er the task, ne'er mind it. For if you chance to meet at last With that one heart intended--'" Susan's voice had grown husky. She cleared her throat again. "I'm afraid I made a poor selection," she apologized. "You see I'm not as familiar with po'try as you are, Mr. Dale." She turned the leaves in a confusion that increased as her groping vision stumbled continually on lines startlingly sentimental. "'Let thy love in kisses rain On my cheeks and eye-lids pale.'" Susan opened ten pages ahead and tried again. "'When stars are in the quiet skies, Then most I pine for thee. Bend on me, then, thy tender eyes, As stars look on the sea.'" Joel's change of position was subtly suggestive of weariness. Susan whirled the leaves and took a desperate plunge.