She swung her reticule. “It's all right!” and she ran up the walk, a most feminine swirl of progress. She got to him breathless. “I've found a house that will give you its German correspondence to translate and write, and it won't be so much but that you can do it as you're able, within reason. Now, sir!” For a minute it seemed as if Guy's whole body was alive. The weak and shaken invalid still had something of unconquerable boyishness in the lift of his head and the light of his eyes. “Good! That will do for a start.” The old spirit, to which hers always answered. If she didn't believe he would actually do something worth while in the end! Then promptly, of old habit, he thought of her. “Bibi! You took your time for that.” “Not all of it, in good sooth, fair lord.” She spread out her skirts, lady-come-to-see fashion, and strutted across the room. “Mrs. Osbourne has a new 'job' and a 'raise.'” (Incidentally Mrs. Osbourne had never before been so advanced in her language.) “Bully for you!” he shouted, so genuinely that she ran back to him and shook and hugged his shoulders. How she _liked_ him! “What a thorough girl you are, Bibi!” “Oh, and to-day I've been laughing at myself; as silly as I used to be, counting so much on a mere change of circumstances. Of course something unpleasant will develop there too. But at least the harness will rub in a different place. On the whole, it will be better. Guy, do you know, I have just gotten rid of envy and discontent, and that without endangering ambition. I'll give you the charm; it's a sort of cabalistic _spell_--the four P's--Occu_p_ation, Res_p_onsibility, _P_urpose, and _P_hilosophy.” “Yes,” he said, “the most worth-while thing in life is to feel you are accomplishing something--doing your work well and getting proportionate returns.” The tone touched her. “Poor old Guy!” so generously congratulatory of her flaunted advantages. How stupid she was! Poor Guy! her pretty creed scattered at a breath like a dead dandelion-ball. Envy she had disposed of, but what about pity? What had he to make up? “The idea of my talking of happiness, with you caged here!” “Perhaps that was the point of it all,” he said, “to give you your chance.” “That would be a beautifully humble thing for me to think, now wouldn't it?” Yet she had once complained that the point of it all was to interfere with her. “And so sweetly generous. Your chance being--?” “To serve as a means of grace to you?” He smiled. “I am glad to be of some use--and honored to be of that one!” he hurried to add, elaborately humorous. But what she was noticing was the flagging effort of his vivacity. Her half-submerged first impression of him was coming to the surface: he did look unusually haggard. “You haven't been good while I was away. Now don't tell stories. Don't I know you? No more storms, Guy!” she warned. His eye evaded hers. “I am seriously questioning whether you ought to make this change. All your friends are here.”