Vida had once beheld Raymie as a thin man with spectacles, mournful drawn-out face, and colorless stiff hair.  Now she noted that his jaw was square, that his long hands moved quickly and were bleached in a refined manner, and that his trusting eyes indicated that he had “led a clean life.”  She began to call him “Ray,” and to bounce in defense of his unselfishness and thoughtfulness every time Juanita Haydock or Rita Gould giggled about him at the Jolly Seventeen.

On a Sunday afternoon of late autumn they walked down to Lake Minniemashie.  Ray said that he would like to see the ocean; it must be a grand sight; it must be much grander than a lake, even a great big lake.  Vida had seen it, she stated modestly; she had seen it on a summer trip to Cape Cod.

“Have you been clear to Cape Cod?  Massachusetts?  I knew you’d traveled, but I never realized you’d been that far!”

Made taller and younger by his interest she poured out, “Oh my yes.  It was a wonderful trip.  So many points of interest through Massachusetts—­historical.  There’s Lexington where we turned back the redcoats, and Longfellow’s home at Cambridge, and Cape Cod—­just everything—­fishermen and whale-ships and sand-dunes and everything.”

She wished that she had a little cane to carry.  He broke off a willow branch.

“My, you’re strong!” she said.

“No, not very.  I wish there was a Y. M. C. A. here, so I could take up regular exercise.  I used to think I could do pretty good acrobatics, if I had a chance.”

“I’m sure you could.  You’re unusually lithe, for a large man.”

“Oh no, not so very.  But I wish we had a Y. M. It would be dandy to have lectures and everything, and I’d like to take a class in improving the memory—­I believe a fellow ought to go on educating himself and improving his mind even if he is in business, don’t you, Vida—­I guess I’m kind of fresh to call you ’Vida’!”

“I’ve been calling you ‘Ray’ for weeks!”

He wondered why she sounded tart.

He helped her down the bank to the edge of the lake but dropped her hand abruptly, and as they sat on a willow log and he brushed her sleeve, he delicately moved over and murmured, “Oh, excuse me—­accident.”

She stared at the mud-browned chilly water, the floating gray reeds.

“You look so thoughtful,” he said.

She threw out her hands.  “I am!  Will you kindly tell me what’s the use of—­anything!  Oh, don’t mind me.  I’m a moody old hen.  Tell me about your plan for getting a partnership in the Bon Ton.  I do think you’re right:  Harry Haydock and that mean old Simons ought to give you one.”

He hymned the old unhappy wars in which he had been Achilles and the mellifluous Nestor, yet gone his righteous ways unheeded by the cruel kings. . . .  “Why, if I’ve told ’em once, I’ve told ’em a dozen times to get in a side-line of light-weight pants for gents’ summer wear, and of course here they go and let a cheap kike like Rifkin beat them to it and grab the trade right off ’em, and then Harry said—­you know how Harry is, maybe he don’t mean to be grouchy, but he’s such a sore-head——­”