“My heavens!” Noble gasped, as for the first time he realized to what trumpeting publicity that seemingly hushed and moonlit bower, sacred to Julia, had been given over.  He gulped, flushed, repeated “My heavens!” and then was able to add, with a feeble suggestion of lightness:  “I suppose your grandfather understood it was just a sort of joke, didn’t he?”

“No,” said Herbert, and continued in a friendly way, for he was flattered by Noble’s interest in his remarks, and began to feel a liking for him.  “No.  He said Aunt Julia only talked like that because she couldn’t think of anything else to say, and it was wearin’ him out.  He said all the good it did was to make you smoke more to make her think how reckless you were; but the worst part of it was, he’d be the only one to suffer, because it blows all through the house and he’s got to sit in it.  He said he just could stand the smell of some cigarettes, but if you burned any more o’ yours on his porch he was goin’ to ask your father to raise your salary for collectin’ real-estate rents, so’t you’d feel able to buy some real tobacco.  He——­”

But the flushed listener felt that he had heard as much as he was called upon to bear; and he interrupted, in a voice almost out of control, to say that he must be “getting on downtown.”  His young friend, diverted from bugs, showed the greatest willingness to continue the narrative indefinitely, evidently being in possession of copious material; but Noble turned to depart.  An afterthought detained him.  “Where was it she lost her earring?”

“Who?”

“Your Aunt Julia.”

“Why, I didn’t say she lost any earring,” Herbert returned.  “I said she always was losin’ ’em:  I didn’t say she did.”

“Then you didn’t mean——­”

“No,” said Herbert, “I haven’t heard of her losin’ anything at all, lately.”  Here he added:  “Well, grandpa kept goin’ on about you, and he told her——­Well, so long!” And gazed after the departing Mr. Dill in some surprise at the abruptness of the latter’s leave-taking.  Then, wondering how the back of Noble’s neck could have got itself so fiery sunburnt, Herbert returned to his researches in the grass.

* * * * *

The peaceful street, shady and fragrant with summer, was so quiet that the footfalls of the striding Noble were like an interruption of coughing in a silent church.  As he seethed adown the warm sidewalk the soles of his shoes smote the pavement, for mentally he was walking not upon cement but upon Mr. Atwater.

Unconsciously his pace presently became slower for a more concentrated brooding upon this slanderous old man who took advantage of his position to poison his daughter’s mind against the only one of her suitors who cared in the highest way.  And upon this there came an infinitesimal consolation in the midst of anguish, for he thought of what Herbert had told him about Mr. Newland Sanders’s poems to Julia, and he had a strong conviction that one time or another Mr. Atwater must have spoken even more disparagingly of these poems and their author than he had of Orduma cigarettes and their smoker.  Perhaps the old man was not altogether vile.