“You’ve been buying too many steamship companies this week.  Jerry.  I’m sure of it.  You’re ‘sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.’  It’s too bad you have a conscience.  It must be fearfully inconvenient.”  And then as we came to the swimming pool, “Isn’t it huge?  And all of marble!  You’re the most luxurious creature.  I was just wondering—­” She paused.

“Wondering what—?”

“How many Blank Street families I could clean in it without even changing the water.”

He laughed.  “Build one.  I’ll pay for it.”

“It would be great for the boys and men, wouldn’t it?  But, then—­” she sighed.  “We haven’t got our club yet.”

He laughed again.

“But you’re going to have it, you know, when the day nursery is done.”

“Oh, are we?”

“Of course, that’s settled.”

We had reached the gymnasium.

“And this is where you—?” A pleading look from Jerry made her pause.  “And do you pull all these ropes?  What fun!  I believe you could have fifty boys in here at once all playing and not one of them in the other’s way.”

We couldn’t help smiling.  In spite of herself, she was thinking in terms of her beloved Blank Street.

“You’ll have to forgive me, Jerry, if I’m covetous.  That’s my besetting sin.  But it is a fine place—­so spacious.  And it would make such an adorable laundry!”

“You shall have one,” said Jerry.

The girl laughed.

“No.  I won’t dare to wish any more.  The purse of Fortunatus brought him into evil ways.  It must be terrible, Jerry, not to be able to want something.”

“But I do want many things.”

“Yes.  I suppose we all do that,” she said, quickly finishing the discussion, but I think she had noticed the sudden drop in Jerry’s voice.

From there we went to the museum to look over the specimens, and in a moment Una and Jerry were deep in a butterfly talk.  There Jack and I left them, taking Mrs. Habberton into the main hall, where I rang for one of the maids who showed her to her room.

“Well,” I asked of Jack.  “What do you think of her?”

“What I think is of course a matter of no importance to Jerry.  But since you ask, I don’t mind telling you that I love her to distraction.  Where are the boy’s eyes?  His ears?  And all the rest of his receptive organs?  If I were ten years younger—­” and he patted his embonpoint regretfully, “I’d ask something of her charity, something immediate and practical.  She should found the John K. Ballard Home, Pope, a want of mine for many years.  But, alas!  She has eyes only for Jerry.”

“Do you really think so?” I asked.

“Yes, I do.  And he’s not worth bothering about.  He ought to be shot, offhand.”

“I entirely agree with you,” I smiled.

Dinner that night was gay and most informal.  Jack was at his best and gave us in inimitable satire a description of a luncheon at Newport in honor of a prize chow dog attended by all the high-bred pups of Bellview Avenue, including Jack’s own bull terrier Scotty, which in an inadvertent moment devoured the small Pekingese of Jack’s nearest neighbor, a dereliction of social observance which caused the complete and permanent social ostracism of Scotty—­and Jack.