"To dry the dishes," Olive told him literally. "One doesn't want to eat things in a puddle." Dolph stuck his hands into the pockets of his coat. Then he turned to face her rebukefully. "What a concrete mind you do have, Olive! I wish you'd come into my classes; I'd teach you how to generalize, and give you some much-needed lessons in beauty of diction. You mean well; but you certainly do talk like a housemaid, and--Good morning, Mr. Brenton. Jolly sort of morning, too!" Then Dolph digressed. "What in thunder is the matter with that fellow, Olive?" "Matter?" Olive tried her best to look surprised at the question. "No use shamming. You are perfectly aware that something has gone wrong with the dominie, and he's on his nerves," Dolph told her coolly. "Besides, why should you be denying it? One only tells fibs about one's own responsibilities, and you aren't responsible for Brenton, as far as I know." "Heaven forbid!" Olive replied, with hasty piety. "I have all the responsibility I can endure, with you and Reed." "Best cut out Opdyke, then, and focus it all on me," Dolph advised her genially. "I need it, and I shall repay your effort, seven-fold." Then he digressed again, this time without a trace of humour. "Olive, for a fact, how is Opdyke?" he inquired. "Haven't you seen him lately?" "Yes, of course." Dolph spoke with some impatience. "That's the reason I am asking. I go in there, as often as I can spend the time and stand the strain." Olive edged a trifle nearer to the fur-lined elbow. "You feel it, too, Dolph?" "Good Lord, yes! How could anybody help it, anybody with a nerve in his composition? It takes it out of one tremendously, Olive," Dolph frowned intently; "and it's a curious fact that it takes it out of me worse on his good days than on his bad ones." Olive glanced up sharply. "I didn't know he had any bad ones; at least, not to show them out." Dolph shook his head at the street in general. "That's the woman of you, Olive; the woman in you, I mean. Opdyke is morally bound to hold it all in, when you're in sight and hearing. No man that's half a man will squeak before a woman, and Opdyke's all man, fast enough. Yes, poor devil, he does have his bad days, like all the rest of us. However, the rest of us can arise and lick somebody, if the spirit moves us; and poor old Opdyke has to lie still and take it out in swearing. He does swear, too; and now and then his temper is positively vitriolic." "Reed's?" Olive's voice betrayed indignation, incredulity. "Rather." Dolph laughed. "On one or two occasions, it has risen to that level." Then he sobered. "Don't begrudge him the relief of it, Olive. It's his one salvation, his one road of escape from something that easily might be madness. Have you thought about the change it's made for him?" "Dolph! Do any of us ever think of anything else?" For an instant, he eyed her keenly, apparently seeking to discover what underlay her words. Then,--