“I mean what I say,” he went on angrily, his eyes flashing. “He’s a cur! He’s――――” “Phil, dear, you’re angry! Don’t say anything more now, please! For my sake, Phil!” She went to him and put one arm around him and kissed the cheek that strove to draw away. “Wait until to-morrow, Phil, _please_.” He gulped; then he drew the hand from his shoulder and turned away. “All right, Margey,” he answered quietly. “I’m――I’m a little bit――I reckon I’ll go out for awhile.” He picked his cap from the table and passed out onto the porch. Margaret took up the letter from the hearth, sighed, and then in a passion of rage tore it into bits and hurled it into the flames. Sinking into the chair, she leaned her face in her hands and sat there long, motionless, in the firelight. After supper Phillip sought her again. The trouble was not gone from his face, but his first anger was past. “I’ve been thinking it over, Margey,” he said quietly. “We must make the best of it. I beg your pardon for――for the way I went on, for the things I said. It――it’ll be all right, won’t it?” She smiled back at him gladly. “Yes, Phil, it will be all right if we stick together, dear. And we will, won’t we?” “Always, Margey.” “And――and what you said, Phil, about Mr. North wasn’t――――” “We’ll leave him out of it, if you please, Margey,” he said coldly. Margaret sighed. CHAPTER XX “The whole thing’s a big swindle!” declared Chester Baker in disgust. “Here I’ve been watching them ever since lunch, and what has happened? Not a thing! There hasn’t even been a false step!” He turned away from the window and punched a cushion vindictively. Phillip laughed and took his place beside him, glancing upward at the source of Chester’s discontent. In the upper end of the Yard a little army of men in brown jumpers, armed with pruning-shears attached to bamboo poles, were swarming over the elms, waging a war of extermination against the brown-tail moths whose nests dotted the tips of the topmost branches. “I shouldn’t want to be up there,” said Phillip. “There isn’t the least danger,” answered Chester. “They never fall. They walk around up there, seventy feet or more from the ground, and balance themselves on twigs and leaves and poke those poles around and have a perfectly elegant time. Why, they won’t even make believe to fall or lose their balance or anything! Well, I’ve simply wasted two hours, that’s all.” “It’s hard luck,” grinned Phillip. “Oh, I suppose you don’t care,” complained Chester. “You have no art in your soul. I’m disgusted. For two hours I’ve sat here and waited patiently to see a body come hurtling downward. But nary a hurtle! Not one corpse has dropped with a dull, sickening thud upon the snow-covered ground. Not a speck of gore decorates the landscape. I shall write to the _Crimson_ about it.