“I see,” Braithwaite returned. “I just happened to ask. We’ve—ah—lost the man we’ve had lately. He was a very good driver and we haven’t anybody to take his place.” Mrs. Dodge spoke sepulchrally as she rose from her chair. “That’s too bad,” she said, and, to her husband’s relief, stopped there, adding nothing. “Yes,” Braithwaite assented. “He was a very good driver indeed; but he was a college graduate and only yesterday he found another position, tutoring, and left us. He was a very good man—Dolling.” “What?” Mr. Dodge said. “Who?” “Dolling,” Braithwaite replied; and followed his wife to the door. “I just happened to mention his name: Dolling. I—I didn’t address you as ‘darling,’ Mr. Dodge, though I see how you might easily have thought I did. The man’s name was Dolling. I shouldn’t like you to think I’d take the liberty of calling _you_——” But here he was interrupted by such an uproarious shout of laughter from his host that his final words were lost. Mr. Dodge’s laughter continued, though it was interspersed with hearty expressions of hospitality and parting cheer, until the callers had passed the outer threshold and the door had closed behind them. Then the hilarious gentleman returned from the hall to face a wife who found nothing in the world, just then, a laughing matter. “The worst thing you did,” she assured him, “was to be so fascinated that you told her I’d been amiable to you about your sending that check—just after I said I knew all about it _before_ you sent it and had _told_ you to send it! That was a pleasant position to put your wife in, wasn’t it?” “Lydia!” he shouted, still outrageous in his mirth. “Let’s forget that part of it and remember only Dolling!” “All right,” she said, and her angry eyes flashed. “Suppose his name _was_ Dolling. What was she talking to him about rosemary and remembrance for?” “I don’t know, and it doesn’t seem important. The only thing I can get my mind on is your keeping to yourself so solemnly the scandalous romance of Dolling!” And becoming more respectably sober, for a time, he asked her: “Don’t you really see a little fun in it, Lydia?” “What!” she cried. “Do you? After you saw that wretched little man of hers stand up there and recite his lesson like a trained monkey? Did you look at _her_ while he was performing? She stood in the doorway and held the whip-lash over him till he finished! And if this idol of yours is so innocent and pure, why did she go all to pieces the way she did when she saw me that morning by the hedge?” “Why, don’t you see?” he cried. “Of course she saw you thought she’d called the man ‘darling’! She knew you didn’t know his name was Dolling. Isn’t it plain to you _yet_?” “No!” his wife said, vehemently. “It isn’t plain to me and it never will be!” XVII “DOLLING”