Not that Archibald had any liking for tea. On the first occasion of his accepting it, he had asked for four lumps of sugar in his cup, explaining that plenty of sweetness took the worst of the taste away. But he had firmly declined the Major's sympathetic suggestion to substitute a highball, having his own quaint notions of the proprieties. One of them was that no gentleman drinks liquor in the presence of a lady. It was a genuine shock to him to find that Major Darcy did so, freely: and what he felt when Mrs. Darcy joined her husband in the act, he was fortunately able to dissemble. It merely confirmed an earlier impression. Joan gave up riding on Saturday afternoons to stay at home and umpire the boxing matches. She felt that her father ought to be encouraged. Besides, it rather interested her to see her protégé in a new light. Once stripped to the waist and gloved--(she soon got used to the sight of her father in a pink silk undershirt and Archibald in no shirt at all), the young man lost all his awkwardness and shyness and appeared quite a different person, confident, masterly. "Look out, Major! I'm after your nose this time," he would smile. "Guard yourself. Here's where I get it!" "Damned if you do!" the other would cry, feinting desperately, but without avail. Archie always got it. At first the girl gasped with alarm whenever his glove plopped into smart contact with her father's face or body; but she soon saw that only the skill of the younger man went into these blows, never his strength. Richard Darcy saw it too, and was mortified. "You're playing off on me, damn your young hide!" he would pant. "You wait--I'll show you yet, I'll show you yet!" And when on one proud occasion he did "show him," to the extent of bringing an unexpected trickle of blood from Archie's nose, Joan let out a cheer of triumph--in which the victim joined with a will. "Bully!" he cried. "That was a sockdollager! Dare you to do it again, Major! Doubledare you!" Seeing him so, the play of powerful muscles under skin as white as a girl's, the joyous grin on his big, plain face, the sheer good-nature of him, intent on giving an older man what he called a "run for his money," and yet as controlledly gentle with him as a great dog playing with a child, Joan began to understand why Johnny Carmichael and his friends were enthusiastic over Archie Blair. He was that rarest of finds, a good playfellow. The companionship of men with men was something she suddenly envied. Why couldn't women put on gloves and knock some of the pettiness out of each other, the small spites and vanities and jealousies? She would very much have enjoyed letting a little blood out of the nose of, say, Emily Carmichael! In a perfectly friendly spirit, of course....