“There is no earthly reason why you shouldn’t live here,” Alix said, pleasantly.

“There is no earthly reason why we should!” Martin returned.  He was annoyed by a suspicion that Alix and Cherry had arranged between them to make this plan the alternative to a divorce.  “To tell you the honest truth, I don’t like Mill Valley!”

Alix tasted despair.  Small hope of preserving this particular relationship.  He was, as Cherry had said, “impossible.”

“Well, we must try to make you like Mill Valley better!” she said, with resolute good-nature.  “Of course, it means a lot to Cherry and to me to be near each other!”

“That may be true, too,” Martin agreed, taking the front seat again for the drive home.  He told Cherry later that he liked Alix, and Alix was interested enough in keeping him happy to deliberately play upon his easily touched self-confidence.  She humoured him, laughed at his jokes, asked him the questions that he was able to answer, and loved to answer.

She was surprised at Cherry’s passivity and silence, but Cherry was wrapped in a sick and nervous dream, unable either to interpret the present or face the future with any courage.  Before luncheon he had followed her into her room, and had put his arm about her.  But she had quietly shaken him off, with the nervous murmur:  “Please—­no, don’t kiss me, Martin!”

Stung, Martin had immediately dropped his arm, had shrugged his shoulders indifferently, and laughed scornfully.  Now he remarked to Alix, with some bravado: 

“You girls still sleeping out?”

“Oh, always—­we all do!” Alix had answered, readily.  “Peter has an extra bunk on his porch, Cherry and I have my porch.  But you can be out or in, as you choose!”

Martin ventured an answer that made Cherry’s eyes glint angrily, and brought a quick, embarrassed flush to Alix’s face.  Alix did not enjoy a certain type of joking, and she did not concede Martin even the ghost of a smile.  He immediately sobered, and remarked that he himself liked to be indoors at night.  His suitcase was accordingly taken into the pleasant little wood-smelling room next to Peter’s, where the autumn sunlight, scented with the dry sweetness of mountain shrubs, was streaming.

He began to play solitaire, on the porch table, at five, and Kow had to disturb him to set it for dinner at seven.  Alix was watering the garden, Cherry was dressing.  It was an exquisite hour of long shadows and brilliant lights; bees from Alix’s hives went to and fro, and the air was full and fragrant, as if a golden powder had been scattered through it.