She bent toward him with a slight, an almost imperceptible movement of her shoulders, and her lips parted tremulously in a wistful smile of many connotations. She was not without her charms; she was a very pretty woman; and there was nothing vulgar in her manner of exercising her charms. Bruce touched her hand, gently clasped it--a slender, cool hand. She made no attempt to release it; and it lay lingering and acquiescent in his clasp. He raised it and kissed the finger tips. “You really understand me; I knew you would,” she murmured. “It’s terrible to be lonely. And you are so big and strong; you can help me if you will----” “I have no right to help you,” he said. “It’s part of the game in this funny world that we’ve got to help ourselves.” “But if you knew I needed you----” “Ah, but you don’t!” he replied. Bud tiptoed in with a tray containing highball materials and placed it on the tea table. He urged them in eloquent pantomime to drink themselves to death and tiptoed out again. Bruce, wondering if he dared leave, hoped the interruption would serve to change the current of his talk with Constance, when she said: “Shep speaks of you often; he likes you and really Shep’s ever so interesting.” “Yes,” Bruce answered, “he has ideas and ideals--really thinks about things in a fine way.” He did not care to discuss Shepherd Mills with Shepherd’s wife, even when, presumably, she was merely making talk to create an atmosphere of intimacy. “Shep isn’t a cut-up,” she went on, “and he doesn’t know how to be a good fellow with men of his own age. And he’s so shy he’s afraid of the older men. And his father--you’ve met Mr. Mills? Well, Shep doesn’t seem able to get close to his father.” “That happens, of course, between fathers and sons,” Bruce replied. “Mr. Mills----” He paused, took a cigarette from his case and put it back. He was by turns perplexed, annoyed, angry and afraid--afraid that he might in some way betray himself. “Mr. Mills is a curious person,” Constance went on. “He seems to me like a man who lives alone in a formal garden with high walls on four sides and has learned to ignore the roar of the world outside--a prisoner who carries the key of his prison-house but can’t find the lock!” Bruce bent his head toward her, intent upon her words. He hadn’t thought her capable of anything so imaginative. Some reply was necessary; he would make another effort to get rid of a subject that both repelled and fascinated him. “I suppose we’re all born free; if we find ourselves shut in it’s because we’ve built the walls ourselves.” “How about my prison-house?” she asked. “Do you suppose I can ever escape?” “Why should you? Don’t you like your garden?” “Not always; no! It’s a little stifling sometimes!” “Then push the walls back a little! It’s a good sign, isn’t it, when we begin to feel cramped?”