What the pair really thought of the life John Galbraith led, or of the guests he sometimes brought out for week-end visits, no one knew.  But the pleasant sort of homely hospitality one always found there was extremely attractive to Rose, and with Rodney’s regular Saturday letter at hand she’d have accepted the invitation eagerly.  As it was, she answered almost shortly that she couldn’t come.  Then, contrite, she hastened to dilute her refusal with an elaboration of regrets and hastily contrived reasons.

“All right,” he said good-humoredly, “I shan’t ask any one else, but if you happen to change your mind call me on the phone in the morning.  Tell me what train you’re coming down on and I’ll meet you.”

She didn’t expect to change her mind, but a phonograph did it for her.  This instrument was domesticated across the court somewhere—­she had never bothered to discover just which pair of windows the sound of it issued from—­and it was addicted to fox-trots, comic recitations in negro dialect, and the melodies of Mr. Irving Berlin.  It was jolly and companionable and Rose regarded it as a friend.  But on this Saturday night, perversely enough, perhaps because its master was in Pittsburgh on a business trip and hadn’t come home as expected, the thing turned sentimental.  It sang I’m on My Way to Mandalay, under the impression that Mandalay was an island somewhere.  It played The Rosary, done as a solo on the cornet; and over and over again it sang, with the thickest, sirupiest sentiment that John McCormack at his best is capable of,

  “Just a little love, a li—­ttle kiss,
  Just an hour that holds a world of bliss,
  Eyes that tremble like the stars above me,
  And the little word that says you love me.”

It was a song that had tormented Rose before with the abysmal fatuity of its phrases, its silly sloppy melody, and yet—­this was the infuriating thing—­the way it had of getting into her, somehow, reaching bare nerves and setting them all aquiver.

To-night it broke her down.  She closed the windows, despite the sultriness of the night, but the tune, having once got in, couldn’t be shut out.  Whether she heard it or only fancied she did, didn’t matter.  The words bored their way into her brain.

  “Just a little love, a little kiss,
  I would give you all my life for this,
  As I hold you fast and bend above you ...”

It was a white night for Rose.  The morning sun had been streaming into her bedroom for an hour before she finally fell asleep.  And at nine o’clock, when she wakened, she heard the phonograph going again.  It was now on its way to Mandalay, but John McCormack was no doubt waiting in the background.  She went to the telephone and called up Galbraith, telling him she’d come by the first train she could get.

He met her with a dog-cart and a fat pony, and when they had jogged their way to their destination they spent what was left of the morning looking over the farm.  Then there was a midday farm dinner that Rose astonished herself by dealing with as it deserved and by feeling sleepy at the conclusion of.  Galbraith caught her biting down a yawn and packed her off to the big Gloucester swing in the veranda, the one addition he’d built on the place, for a nap; and obediently she did as he bade her.