That meant work--the hard, incessant, blinding, stupefying work which stuns thought and makes such a life endurable. Not that he had ever desired death as a refuge or as a solution of despair; there was too much of the soldier in him. Besides, it is so impossible for youth to believe in death, to learn to apply the word to themselves. He had not learned to, and he had seen death, and watched it; but for himself he had not learned to believe in it. When one turns forty it is easier to credit it. Thinking of death, impersonally, he sat watching the flames playing above the heavy log; and as he lay there in his chair, the unlighted pipe drooping in his hands, the telephone on the desk rang, and he rose and unhooked the receiver. Drina's voice sounded afar, and: "Hello, sweetheart!" he said gaily; "is there anything I can do for your youthful highness?" "I've been talking over the 'phone to Boots," she said. "You know, whenever I have nothing to do I call up Boots at his office and talk to him." "That must please him," suggested Selwyn gravely. "It does. Boots says you are not going to business to-day. So I thought I'd call you up." "Thank you," said Selwyn. "You are welcome. What are you doing over there in Boots's house?" "Looking at the fire, Drina, and listening to the purring of three fat tabby-cats." "Oh! Mother and Eileen have gone somewhere. I haven't anything to do for an hour. Can't you come around?" "Why, yes, if you want me." "Yes, I do. Of course I can't have Boots, and I prefer you next. The children are fox-hunting, and it bores me. Will you come?" "Yes. When?" "Now. And would you mind bringing me a box of mint-paste? Mother won't object. Besides, I'll tell her, anyway, after I've eaten them." "All right!" said Selwyn, laughing and hanging up the receiver. On his way to the Gerards' he bought a box of the confection dear to Drina. But as he dropped the packet into his overcoat-pocket, the memory of the past rose up suddenly, halting him. He could not bear to go to the house without some little gift for Eileen, and it was violets now as it was in the days that could never dawn again--a great, fragrant bunch of them, which he would leave for her after his brief play-hour with Drina was ended. The child was glad to see him, and expressed herself so, coming across to the chair where he sat and leaning against him, one arm on his shoulder. "Do you know," she said, "that I miss you ever so much? Do you know, also, that I am nearly fourteen, and that there is nobody in this house near enough my age to be very companionable? I have asked them to send me to school, and mother is considering it." She leaned against his shoulder, curly head bent, thoughtfully studying the turquoise ring on her slim finger. It was her first ring. Nina had let Boots give it to her.