she were thankful for Mamie, incomprehensible to her though the lanky American girl in her yellow make-up and brick-colored draperies must certainly be.
Despite the crowds on the quay and on the boat, the trip up the river was pleasant. The intolerable brightness of the day gave place to a soft, beneficent twilight that promised to linger, as though it were already summertime, and there was a thrilling hush over the world as they walked up the path toward the inn.
They chose a table on a porch that hung over the river, and there was a general tendency to lean forward, elbows on the cloth, and forget every irritating fact in life, assume that angles were round, that the odds were in one's favor, and all the inevitables, evitable. There was contented and easy laughter to spare for inane remarks that normally, Grover felt, would have made exhaustive drains on patience. Why have I been so foolish, was the little cry of pent-up emotion within himself. Just see how safe it all is!
It was a question of what to drink. Hellgren's choice was beer, and Mamie followed his lead, explaining that her new coach didn't object to that beverage. Besides, thought Grover, she'd drink iodine if Hellgren did.
He and Olga in the same breath voted for white wine, and their eyes met. Some kite that he had been holding to earth till consciousness was numb from the ache slipped quickly away and went soaring over the treetops, the willows and the poplars, across the lemon-
