"And you're almost happy?" At the anxiety in his voice, she was unreasonably happy. "Yes," she called back. "Good-night." "Got the key safe?" "All safe. Good-night." "God bless you, playmate." That was what she thought she heard. XII Madam Fulton was at the library table, considering her morning mail, and Billy Stark sat on the veranda just outside the window where she could call to him and be cheerfully answered. Presently Electra came in, a book, a pencil, and some slips of paper in her hand. There was intense consideration on her brow. She had on, her grandmother thought with discouragement, her clubwoman's face. Billy Stark, seeing her, got up and with his cigar and his newspaper wandered away. He had some compassion for Electra and her temperament, though not for that could he abstain from the little observances due his engagement to Madam Fulton. He had a way of bringing in a flower from the garden and presenting it to the old lady with an exaggerated significance. Electra always winced, but Madam Fulton was delighted. He called her "Florrie," prettily, and "Florrie, dear." Again Electra shrank, and then he took the wrinkled hand. One day Madam Fulton looked up at him with a droll mischief in her eyes. "I suppose it's an awful travesty, isn't it, Billy?" "Not for me," said Billy loyally. "Can't I be in love with a woman at the end of fifty years? I should smile." "It's great fun," she owned. Then more than half in earnest, "Billy, do you suppose I shall go to hell?" This morning Electra had found something to puzzle her. "I've been working on your book a little, grandmother," she began. "What book? My soul and body!" The old lady saw the cover and laid down her pen. "That's my 'Recollections.' What are you doing with that?" "They are extremely interesting," said Electra absorbedly. She sat down and laid her notes aside, to run over a doubtful page. "We are going to have an inquiry meeting on it." "We? Who?" "The club. Everybody was deeply disappointed because you've refused to say anything; but it occurred to us we might give an afternoon to classifying data in it, naming people you just refer to, you know. I am doing the Brook Farm section." Madam Fulton sank back in her chair and looked despairingly from the window for Billy Stark. "I shall never," she said, "hear the last of that book!" "Why should you wish to hear the last of it?" asked Electra. "It is a very valuable book. It would be more so if you would only be frank about it. But I can understand that. I told the club it was your extreme delicacy. You simply couldn't mention names." "No, I couldn't," murmured the old lady. "I couldn't."