"Well, I don't hear much," she said. She took a letter out of her pocket and handed it to him. When he had read it, he was silent for a while. ("If this is the sort of letter a blighted being writes," he reflected, "love has changed since my time.") "_Dear Fred_," the letter ran, "_I'm having the time of my life. Tell Laura Childs I saw a shell necklace that she'd be perfectly crazy about. The dredging ..._" Then followed two pages about shells, which Mr. Weston, raising a bored eyebrow, skipped. "_Those books you sent were bully. They look very interesting. I haven't had time to read them yet. Tell Laura they use boa-constrictors here instead of cats; and tell her that the flowers are perfectly wonderful._" Then came something about suffrage, ending with a ribald suggestion that the suffragists should get a Filipino candidate--"_He wouldn't cost so much as the chief of bosses, Mr. Smith; a Moro will root for 'votes for women' if you promise him a bottle of whisky._" "He is not losing sleep over being rejected," Arthur Weston thought, as he handed the letter back to her.... He had lost some sleep himself, lately: "And there's no excuse for it," he told himself; "I didn't _fall_ in love, I strayed in--in spite of sign-posts on every corner! And now I'm in, I can't get out. Damn it, I will get out!" But each day it seemed as if he 'strayed' farther in.... "Why has H. M. gone off?" Laura asked Frederica. "Why, you know! Shells," Fred said, astonished at the question. "Tell that to the marines. Freddy, you bounced him!" "I did not." "Well, then, if you didn't, what color are the bridesmaids' dresses to be?" Laura retorted. "Get out!" said Frederica. "Why has Mr. Maitland left town?" Mrs. Payton asked her daughter. "Shells." "Oh," Mrs. Payton said; "but I thought he--you--I mean, I supposed ... Freddy, he's a nice fellow. I wish--" "Oh, nice enough," Fred admitted, carelessly. "She's refused him," Mrs. Payton thought; and sighed. Even Flora had to ask her question: "Mr. Maitland has gone away, they say, Miss Freddy?" "So I hear." "Men," said Flora, heavily, "is always going away! Why can't they stay in one place, same as ladies?" "They are not so important as we are," Miss Freddy assured her. "If they was all swep' out of the world, it would be just the same to me," said Flora, viciously. Fred kept a severely straight face; all the household knew poor Flora had had another disappointment. "Why?"--"Why?"--everybody asked. But Frederica only thought "why." Her first feeling when he went away had been a sort of blank astonishment. Of course, it was all right; there was no reason he shouldn't go, only--"Why?"