“Come to lunch if you like. It’s been very jolly and I’ll always be glad to see you—with or without the books.” Gita produced what she called her manor-manners without effort. This author-man had chased away the black clouds that always muttered on the horizon even when they did not overwhelm her and she felt intensely grateful to him. She liked him better than Elsie or Polly and he would be as little likely to make love to her. He felt an impulse to ask her to meet him in the wood, but decided it would be a failure in tactics, and merely replied: “I shall take advantage of your hospitality very often. I came to Atlantic City to get rid of a cold and have taken rooms in Chelsea for a month. But the life here has never interested me and I’ll look upon you as the best of good fellows if you’ll let me come often to this delightful old manor.” “The door is always open, for Topper and I disagree on the subject of fresh air and burglars. As they used to say in California in the old Spanish days, ‘The house is yours. Burn it if you will.’” And they both laughed, and parted, well pleased with themselves. CHAPTER XV Gita, who, to use his own word, had pestered Mr. Donald for money to refurnish her house, had announced some time since that she had changed her mind. “I suppose the house has changed it for me,” she thought; she condescended to no explanation to her lawyer, whom she delighted in tormenting. “I’ve an idea its walls would fall in if I took too many liberties with its sacred traditions.”