"You astonished me."
"How?"
"By calling me like that."
"Oh, so I haven't known you long enough to call you George, eh? Certainly we live and learn!"
"You know I didn't mean that, Irralie."
She did know, and she relented. "Then what's the matter with you? What have I done—or anybody else—that you should look as you have looked all the evening, and—and not behave like other people? Who's offended you? That's what I want to know!"
Nobody. He was not offended at all. That was all he would say. Yet he said it with such a tragic tremor, and was at one and the same time so dignified and manly and pig-headed, that Irralie could not leave ill alone, but must needs answer for him.
"I know who!" she whispered, and pointed across the yard to the front veranda. It showed a firmament of tiny red stars. The new owner had got at his
