She cut her interview with Mrs. Clancy short. Allan, lying motionless, caught a green flash of her, crossing into her room to dress, another blue flash as she went out; dropped his eyelids and crossed his hands to doze a little, an innocent and unwary Crusader. He did not know it, but a Plan was about to rise up and hit him. The bride his mother had left him as a parting legacy had gone out to order a string of blue beads, a bull-pup, a house, a motor, a banjo, and a rose-garden; as she went she added a talking machine to the list; and he was to be planted in the very centre of everything. "Seems like a nice girl, Wallis," said Allan dreamily. And the discreet Wallis said nothing (though he knew a good deal) about his mistress's shopping-list. "Yes, Mr. Allan," he conceded. * * * * * It was Phyllis Harrington's firm belief that Mr. De Guenther could produce anything anybody wanted at any time, or that if he couldn't his wife could. So it was to him that she went on her quest for the rose-garden, with its incidental house. The rest of the items she thought she could get for herself. It was nearly the last of April, and she wanted a well-heated elderly mansion, preferably Colonial, not too unwieldily large, with as many rose-trees around it as her discretionary powers would stand. And she wanted it as near and as soon as possible. By the help of Mr. De Guenther, amused but efficient, Mrs. De Guenther, efficient but sentimental; and an agent who was efficient merely, she got very nearly what she wanted. Money could do a great deal more than a country minister's daughter had ever had any way of imagining. By its aid she found it possible to have furniture bought and placed inside a fortnight, even to a list of books set up in sliding sectional cases. She had hoped to buy those cases some day, one at a time, and getting them at one fell swoop seemed to her more arrogantly opulent than the purchase of the house and grounds--than even the big shiny victrola. She had bought that herself, before there was a house to put it in, going on the principle that all men not professional musicians have a concealed passion for music that they can create themselves by merely winding up something. And--to anticipate--she found that as far as Allan was concerned she was quite right. "But why do you take this very radical step, my dear?" asked Mrs. De Guenther gently, as she helped Phyllis choose furniture. "I am going to try the only thing Allan's mother seems to have omitted," said Phyllis dauntlessly. "A complete change of surroundings." "Oh, my dear!" breathed Mrs. De Guenther. "It may help poor Allan more than we know! And dear Angela did discuss moving often, but she could never bear to leave the city house, where so many of her dear ones have passed away."