“Same old story, Daren, same old way, a game of billiards now and then, and a little game of cards.  But I’m more lonely than I used to be.”

“Why, you never were lonely!” exclaimed Lane.

“Oh, yes indeed I was, always,” protested the Colonel.

“A little game of cards,” mused Lane.  “How well I remember!  You used to have some pretty big games, too.”

“Er—­yes—­you see—­once in a while, very seldom, just for fun,” he replied.

“How about your old weakness?  Hope you’ve conquered that,” went on Lane, mercilessly.

The Colonel was thrown into utter confusion.  And when Miss Hill turned terrible eyes upon him, poor Pepper looked as if he wanted to sink through the porch.

Lane took pity on him and carried him off to the garden and the river bank, where he became himself again.

They talked for a while, but neither mentioned the subject that had once drawn them together.  For both of them a different life had begun.

A little while afterward Mel and Lane watched the bright figure and the slight dark one go up the hillside cityward.

“What do you know about that!” ejaculated Lane for the tenth time.

“Hush!” said Mel, and she touched his lips with a soft exquisite gesture.

At three o’clock one June afternoon Mel and Daren were lounging on a mossy bank that lined the shady side of a clear rapid-running brook.  A canoe was pulled up on the grass below them.  With an expression of utter content, Lane was leaning over the brook absorbed in the contemplation of a piece of thread which was tied to a crooked stick he held in his hand.  He had gone back to his boyhood days.  Just then the greatest happiness on earth was the outwitting of bright-sided minnows and golden flecked sunfish.  Mel sat nearby with her lap full of flowers which she had gathered in the long grass and was now arranging.  She was dressed in blue; a sunbonnet slipped back from her head; her glossy hair waved in the breeze.  She looked as fresh as a violet.

“Well, Daren, we have spent four delightful, happy hours.  How time flies!  But it’s growing late and we must go,” said Mel.

“Wait a minute or two,” replied Lane.  “I’ll catch this fellow.  See him bite!  He’s cunning.  He’s taken my bait time and again, but I’ll get him.  There!  See him run with the line.  It’s a big sunfish!”

“How do you know?  You haven’t seen him.”

“I can tell by the way he bites.  Ha!  I’ve got him now,” cried Lane, giving a quick jerk.  There was a splash and he pulled out a squirming eel.

“Ugh!  The nasty thing!” cried Mel, jumping up.  Lane had flung the eel back on the bank and it just missed falling into Mel’s lap.  She screamed, and then when safely out of the way she laughed at the disgust in his face.

“So it was a big sunfish?  My!  What a disillusion!  So much for a man’s boastful knowledge.”