“Well—­uh—­I adopted a tone.”

“That was brave, Solon.  No other man on God’s earth would have dared—­”

“A tone, I was about to say—­” he broke in a little uncomfortably, I thought—­“which I have long contemplated adopting.  If I could tell you just how that woman has impressed herself upon me, you’d understand what I mean when I say that she has powers.  But I suppose you can’t understand it, can you?” His tone, curiously enough, was almost pleading.

“It isn’t necessary that I should.  I can at least understand that you are the Boss of Little Arcady once more.”

“Boss of nothing!—­that’s all over.  Cal, I’ve abdicated—­I’m not even Boss of myself.”

“Why, Solon—­you can’t possibly mean—­”

“I do, though!  Mrs. Potts is going to marry me and—­uh—­put an end to everything!”

With this rather curious finish he held out his hand expectantly.

“Well, you certainly did something, Solon.”

“We have to use common sense in these matters,” he said with an effort to control his excitement.  But, looking into his eyes, I saw reason to shake him warmly by the hand.  What was my own poor opinion at a crisis like this?  Certainly nothing to be obtruded upon my friend.  It was clear that he had done a thing which he earnestly wanted and had earnestly dreaded to do—­and that the dread was past.

“I’m pretty happy, Cal—­that’s all.  Of course you’ll soon know how it is yourself.”  He referred here to the well-known fact that I was much in the company of Miss Lansdale.  But this was a thing to be turned.

“Oh, the game is teaching me resignation to a solitary life,” I said with an affectation of disinterest that must have irritated him, for he asked bluntly:—­

“Say, Calvin, how long do you intend to keep up that damned nonsense when everybody knows—­”

This interesting sentence was cut off by Miss Kate Lansdale, who appeared around the corner and paused politely before us, with a look of trained and admirable deafness.

“Ah, Miss Lansdale,” said Solon, urbanely, “I was just about to speak of you.”

“Dear me!” said the young woman, simply.  I thought she was aghast.

“Yes—­but it’s not worth repeating—­or finishing.”

Miss Lansdale seemed to be relieved by this assurance.

“And now I must hurry off,” added Solon.

“Good evening!” we both said.

It seemed to be of a stuff from which curtains are sometimes made, white, with little colored figures in it, but the design would have required at least a column of the most technical description in a magazine I had subscribed for that summer.  There was lace at the throat, and I should say that the thing had been constructed with the needs of Miss Lansdale’s slender but completed figure solely and clearly in mind.

CHAPTER XXIX