They dined protractedly. The meal, consisting of baked chicken, mashed potatoes, boiled onions with cream sauce, boiled beets and green corn, followed by rhubarb pie and ice cream, was served by an independent, bony and red-faced specimen of the "help" genus. The atmosphere was stifling, with the heat of the day thickened by the steam and odour of cooked food. Duncan was seated consciously beside Josie--a circumstance of which, in fact, everyone else seemed tolerantly aware. He writhed in impotent agony, confronted alone by the consciousness he had brought this thing upon himself: it was a part of his punishment. At the conclusion of the meal, which endured throughout two interminable hours, the elder menfolk withdrew to the garden and the lawn, where they strolled about, sleepy eyes glistening with repletion, until finally they disappeared, to each his doze. The ladies foregathered in the parlour, conversing in undertones, with significant glances and liftings of their eyebrows. Nat was left to Josie, who conducted him to the side porch, out of sight of everybody, and planted herself in the baggy hammock there. She was gay, even brilliant within her limitations, arch, naive, coquettish, shy, petulant, by turns: animated by a sense of conquest. She supplied the major part of the conversation, chatting volubly on the thousand subjects she didn't understand, the dozen she did. In the most ingenuous manner imaginable she laid herself open to advances, not once, but a score of times; and when he failed to respond according to the code of Radville, had the wit to mask her chagrin, did she feel any: very probably she laid his lack of responsiveness at the door of his shyness (a quality he was wholly without) and liked him the better for it. It was on this day that she extracted from him his promise to join the choir; he acceded through apathy alone. "I don't care whether you can sing or not," she confessed, with a look. "But I do want somebody to walk home with me that ... I like." "That's a nice way of putting it," Duncan considered without emphasis. "Roland Barnette's always walked home with me, but I think he's just tiresome." "Why?" inquired the young man, with some interest. She averted her head, plucking at the strands of the hammock. "Oh, _you_ know," she said diffidently. "Oh?" Nat was enlightened. "Then I'm sorry for Roland." "Why?" "I can't blame him, you know." He couldn't help this: the time, the place, the girl inspired, indeed incited, one to banality. "Why?" she persisted. "Oh, _you_ know." He caught the intonation of her previous words precisely. She had the grace to blush and hang her head; but he received a thrilling sidelong glance. "Ah... aren't you awful to talk that way, Mr. Duncan?" "Yes," he admitted meekly. "Then you will join the choir?" she pursued, failing to fathom the meaning of that humble acquiescence. Any other boy or man of her acquaintance would have taken her remark as openly provocative.