As they went down the steps together, the top of his head just above the level of his companion's shoulder, he lifted to Corliss a searching gaze like an actor's hopeful scrutiny of a new acquaintance; and before they reached the street his bark rang eagerly on the stilly night: "Now _there_ is a point on which I beg to differ with you. . . ." Mrs. Madison gave Lindley her hand. "I think I'll go in. Good-night, Richard. Come, Hedrick!" Hedrick rose, groaning, and batted his eyes painfully as he faced the hall light. "What'd you and this Corliss fight about?" he asked, sleepily. "Nothing," said Lindley. "You said you remembered." "Oh, I remember a lot of useless things." "Well, what was it? I want to know what you fought about." "Come, Hedrick," repeated his mother, setting a gently urgent hand on his shoulder. "I won't," said the boy impatiently, shaking her off and growing suddenly very wideawake and determined. "I won't move a step till he tells me what they fought about. Not a step!" "Well--it was about a `show.' We were only boys, you know--younger than you, perhaps." "A circus?" "A boy-circus he and my brother got up in our yard. I wasn't in it." "Well, what did you fight about?" "I thought Val Corliss wasn't quite fair to my brother. That's all." "No, it isn't! How wasn't he fair?" "They sold tickets to the other boys; and I thought my brother didn't get his share." "This Corliss kept it all?" "Oh, something like that," said Lindley, laughing. "Probably I was in the wrong." "And he licked you?" "All over the place!" "I wish I'd seen it," said Hedrick, not unsympathetically, but as a sportsman. And he consented to be led away. Laura had been standing at the top of the steps looking down the street, where Corliss and his brisk companion had emerged momentarily from deep shadows under the trees into the illumination of a swinging arc-lamp at the corner. They disappeared; and she turned, and, smiling, gave the delaying guest her hand in good-night. His expression, which was somewhat troubled, changed to one of surprise as her face came into the light, for it was transfigured. Deeply flushed, her eyes luminous, she wore that shining look Hedrick had seen as she wrote in her secret book. "Why, Laura!" said Lindley, wondering. She said good-night again, and went in slowly. As she reached the foot of the stairs, she heard him moving a chair upon the porch, and Cora speaking sharply: "Please don't sit close to me!" There was a sudden shrillness in the voice of honey, and the six words were run so rapidly together they seemed to form but one. After a moment Cora added, with a deprecatory ripple of laughter not quite free from the same shrillness: "You see, Richard, it's so--it's so hot, to-night." CHAPTER FIVE