Juanita had been licking her lips and staring at Carol.  She interrupted her husband, “Yes, I do think Harry ought to fix it up with him.  You like him, don’t you, Carol??”

Over and through Carol ran a frightened cautiousness.  “Like him?  I haven’t an i-dea.  He seems to be a very decent young man.  I just felt that when he’d worked so hard on the plans for the match, it was a shame not to be nice to him.”

“Maybe there’s something to that,” mumbled Harry; then, at sight of Kennicott coming round the corner tugging the red garden hose by its brass nozzle, he roared in relief, “What d’ you think you’re trying to do, doc?”

While Kennicott explained in detail all that he thought he was trying to do, while he rubbed his chin and gravely stated, “Struck me the grass was looking kind of brown in patches—­didn’t know but what I’d give it a sprinkling,” and while Harry agreed that this was an excellent idea, Juanita made friendly noises and, behind the gilt screen of an affectionate smile, watched Carol’s face.

IV

She wanted to see Erik.  She wanted some one to play with!  There wasn’t even so dignified and sound an excuse as having Kennicott’s trousers pressed; when she inspected them, all three pairs looked discouragingly neat.  She probably would not have ventured on it had she not spied Nat Hicks in the pool-parlor, being witty over bottle-pool.  Erik was alone!  She fluttered toward the tailor shop, dashed into its slovenly heat with the comic fastidiousness of a humming bird dipping into a dry tiger-lily.  It was after she had entered that she found an excuse.

Erik was in the back room, cross-legged on a long table, sewing a vest.  But he looked as though he were doing this eccentric thing to amuse himself.

“Hello.  I wonder if you couldn’t plan a sports-suit for me?” she said breathlessly.

He stared at her; he protested, “No, I won’t!  God!  I’m not going to be a tailor with you!”

“Why, Erik!” she said, like a mildly shocked mother.

It occurred to her that she did not need a suit, and that the order might have been hard to explain to Kennicott.

He swung down from the table.  “I want to show you something.”  He rummaged in the roll-top desk on which Nat Hicks kept bills, buttons, calendars, buckles, thread-channeled wax, shotgun shells, samples of brocade for “fancy vests,” fishing-reels, pornographic post-cards, shreds of buckram lining.  He pulled out a blurred sheet of Bristol board and anxiously gave it to her.  It was a sketch for a frock.  It was not well drawn; it was too finicking; the pillars in the background were grotesquely squat.  But the frock had an original back, very low, with a central triangular section from the waist to a string of jet beads at the neck.

“It’s stunning.  But how it would shock Mrs. Clark!”

“Yes, wouldn’t it!”