“Oh, I don’t carry an umbrella for a walk in the rain,” she told him.  “It’s one of our queer Marshall ways.  We only own one umbrella for the whole family at home, and that’s to lend.  I wear a rubber coat and put on a sou’wester and let it rain.”

“You would!” he said in an unconscious imitation of Arnold’s accent.

She laughed up at him.  “Shall I confess why I do?  Because my hair is naturally curly.”

“Confession has to be prompter than that to save souls,” he answered.  “I knew it was, five weeks ago, when you splashed the water up on it so recklessly there by the brook.”

She was astonished by this revelation of depths behind that well-remembered clear gaze of admiration, and dismayed by such unnatural accuracy of observation.

“How cynical of you to make such a mental comment!”

He apologized.  “It was automatic—­unconscious.  I’ve had a good deal of opportunity to observe young ladies.”  And then, as though aware that the ice was thin over an unpleasant subject, he shifted the talk.  “Upon my word, I wonder how Molly and Morrison will manage?”

“Oh, Molly’s wonderful.  She’d manage anything,” said Sylvia with conviction.

“Morrison is rather wonderful himself,” advanced Page.  “And that’s a magnanimous concession for me to make when I’m now so deep in his bad books.  Do you know, by the way,” he asked, looking with a quick interrogation at the girl, “why I’m so out of favor with him?”

Sylvia’s eyes opened wide.  She gazed at him, startled, fascinated.  Could “it” be coming so suddenly, in this casual, abrupt manner?  “No, I don’t know,” she managed to say; and braced herself.

“I don’t blame him in the least.  It was very vexing.  I went back on him—­so to speak; dissolved an aesthetic partnership, in which he furnished the brains, and my coal-mines the sinews of art. I was one of his devotees, you know.  For some years after I got out of college I collected under his guidance, as my mother does, as so many people do.  I even specialized.  I don’t like to boast, but I dare affirm that no man knows more than I about sixteenth century mezza-majolica.  It is a branch of human knowledge which you must admit is singularly appropriate for a dweller in the twentieth century.  And of great value to the world.  My collection was one of Morrison’s triumphs.”

Sylvia felt foolish and discomfited.  With an effort she showed a proper interest in his remarks.  “Was?” she asked.  “What happened to it?”

“I went back on it.  In one of the first of those fits of moral indigestion.  One day, I’d been reading a report in one of the newspapers on the status of the coal-miner, and the connection between my bright-colored pots and platters, and my father’s lucky guess, became a little too dramatic for my taste.  I gave the collection to the Metropolitan, and I’ve never bought a piece since.  Morrison was immensely put out.  He’d been to great trouble to find some fine Fontana specimens for me.  And then not to have me look at them—­He was right too.  It was a silly, pettish thing to do.  I didn’t know any better then.  I don’t know any better now.”