As if released from some spell of strong enchantment by the movement, Tracey swung on his heel and lunged for the door. "What was it you wanted to ask me, Tracey?" Angie called after him. As the boy disappeared at a hand-gallop his response floated back: "I fergit." "I'm afraid I must have frightened him?" Duncan said inquiringly. "Oh, no, not at all," Josie reassured him; "he's just gone to tell everybody you're here." "Come, Josie, we've been here ever so long." Angie moved slowly toward the door, but Josie inclined to linger. "Don't hurry, I beg of you," Duncan interposed. "Oh, we haven't hurried," she said with a gush of gratification that startled the man. "You'll remember what I said about the choir, won't you?" He braced himself to take advantage of the opening. "I shall never forget it," he said impressively. She gave him her hand. "Then good-bye." "Not good-bye, I trust?" He retained the hand, despising himself inexpressibly. "Oh, we'll be in again, won't we Angie?" "Oh, yes, indeed." "My land, Angie! What do you think? I'd almost forgotten to pay for the soda?" "Please don't speak of it, Miss Lockwood--the pleasure--." "But I must, Mr. Duncan. How much is it?" Josie fingered the contents of her purse expectantly, but Duncan hung in the wind. He had no least notion what might be the price of soda water. "Two for a quarter?" he hazarded with his disarming grin. Angle choked with appreciation of this exquisite sally. "Ain't you funny!" "I'm afraid you're right," he conceded; "still I'd rather you didn't think so." "It's ten cents, isn't it, Mr. Duncan?" Josie was offering him a dime; he accepted it without question. "Thank you, very much," said he. "Good afternoon, ladies." He was aware of Angle's fluttering farewells on the sidewalk. Josie was lingering on the doorstep in an agony of untrained coquetry. He lowered his tone for her benefit, thereby adding new weight to his bombardment of her amateur defences. "Remember you promised to call again." Her giggles tore his ear-drums. "Th-thank you, I'm sure," she stammered, and fled. They disappeared. He wandered to the chair and threw himself limply into it. "That voice!" he said stupidly. "That giggle! I've got to woo and win... _that!_... "It serves me right," he concluded. The most hopeless of humours assailed him, and he yielded to it without a struggle. His attitude expressed his mood with relentless verity. Chin sunken upon his breast, eyes fairly distilling gloom, legs stretched out carelessly before him, he sat motionless, suffocating at the bottom of a gulf of discontent. His lips moved, sometimes noiselessly, again in whispers barely audible. "Years of this!... A matter of human endurance--no, superhuman!... If it wasn't for the bargain, I'd chuck it all and... "Well, the only way to forget your misery is to work, I suppose."