Miss Berry looked at his brilliant, graceful face and figure admiringly. "Why not, indeed?" she said, laughing. "I was always good to you, wasn’t I, Mr. Jack?" "Too good. Far too good. I remember everything." "That is all very well; but why did you bid me a long farewell a week ago, and then turn around and come back again?" persisted Page. Jack tossed off a glass of wine. "Better than ever!" he exclaimed, sending Miss Berry one of the caressing, admiring looks which warmed any feminine heart toward which they were directed. Then he turned to his cousin. "Because, my dear Gorham, I have repented of my rejection of your offer, and after I’ve talked over old times sufficiently with Aunt Love, it is my intention to accompany you to Germany. Do you accept my apology?" "Good enough," commented Page briefly, but with evident satisfaction. "Your decision must have been sudden, though. What was the matter? Did Chicago grate upon your æsthetic sense in her scramble for the Fair?" "She isn’t scrambling, that I know of. She doesn’t need to. She’ll get the Fair all right. Any one can see with half an eye that Chicago is the only place for it,—the foreordained place." Page laughed quietly and skeptically, and there followed one of the arguments of which every American citizen knows the pros and cons. That night Miss Berry put her unexpected guests into two bedrooms which communicated. When her last good wishes for their comfort had been expressed and good-nights said, the two men looked at each other as they listened to her retreating footsteps. "Of course," said Page, "if the explanation you gave me downstairs is all you care to say, I’m satisfied." The brightness had faded from Van Tassel’s face. He looked moody and worn. "No, I meant to tell you, of course," he answered, seating himself on the side of the bed. "I found when I reached home that father had assumed charge of an orphan asylum, and I thought I should be better off out of the way." "What do you mean?" "Exactly what I say. He is going to marry the eldest member, in order to facilitate matters." "Uncle Richard is going to marry again, and you have quarreled with him?" Jack shook his head quickly. "I don’t quarrel with father," he replied briefly. Page sat down in a blue chintz armchair by the window and pushed open the blind; then recollecting that one of Aunt Love’s last warnings had been not to do so on account of mosquitoes, he closed it again. "Uncle Richard has been a widower for fifteen years," he said. "He is scarcely over fifty years old. Aren’t you unreasonable to resent his marrying?" Van Tassel, his sombre eyes fixed on the palm-leaves in the ingrain carpet, emitted an inarticulate sound.