“With many thanks for your kindly expressions of good-will toward me, I am

“Very truly yours,

“VALERIE WEST.”

She had been too tired to call at Querida’s studio, too tired even to take tea at the Plaza with Neville.

Rita came in, silent and out of spirits, and replied in monosyllables to
Valerie’s inquiries.

It finally transpired that Sam Ogilvy and Harry Annan had been tormenting John Burleson after their own fashion until their inanity had exasperated her and she expressed herself freely to everybody concerned.

“It makes me very angry,” she said, “to have a lot of brainless people believe that John Burleson is stupid.  He isn’t; he is merely a trifle literal, and far too intelligent to see any humour in the silly capers Sam and Harry cut.”

Valerie, who was feeling better, sipped her tea and nibbled her toast, much amused at Rita’s championship of the big sculptor.

“John is a dear,” she said, “but even his most enthusiastic partisans could hardly characterise him as a humorist.”

“He’s not a clown—­if that’s what you mean,” said Rita shortly.

“But, Rita, he isn’t humorous, you know.”

“He is.  He has a sense of humour perfectly intelligible to those who understand it.”

“Do you, dear?”

“Certainly ...  And I always have understood it.”

“Oh, what kind of occult humour is it?”

“It is a quiet, cultivated, dignified sense of humour not uncommon in New England, and not understood in New York.”

Valerie nibbled her toast, secretly amused.  Burleson was from Massachusetts.  Rita was the daughter of a Massachusetts clergyman.  No doubt they were fitted to understand each other.

It occurred to her, too, that John Burleson and Rita Tevis had always been on a friendly footing rather quieter and more serious than the usual gay and irresponsible relations maintained between two people under similar circumstances.

Sometimes she had noticed that when affairs became too frivolous and the scintillation of wit and epigram too rapid and continuous, John Burleson and Rita were very apt to edge out of the circle as though for mutual protection.

“You’re not posing for John, are you, Rita?” she asked.

“No.  He has a bad cold, and I stopped in to see that he wore a red flannel bandage around his throat.  A sculptor’s work is so dreadfully wet and sloppy, and his throat has always been very delicate.”

“Do you mean to say that you charge your mind with the coddling of that great big, pink-cheeked boy?” laughed Valerie,

“Coddling!” repeated Rita, flushing up.  “I don’t call it coddling to stop in for a moment to remind a friend that he doesn’t know how to take care of himself, and never will.”

“Nonsense.  You couldn’t kill a man of that size and placidity of character.”

“You don’t know anything about him.  He is much more delicate than he looks.”