She didn’t mean anything in particular, only to be a little disagreeable, to pay Larry back for being so snappy.  But to her amazement Ruth was suddenly blushing a lovely but startling blush and Larry was bending over to examine the hammock-hook in obvious confusion.

“Good gracious!” she thought in consternation.  “Is that what’s up?  It can’t be.  I’m just imagining it.  Larry wouldn’t fall in love with any one who wore a wedding ring.  He mustn’t.”

But she knew in her heart that whether Larry must or must not he had.  A thousand signs betrayed the truth now that her eyes were open.  Poor Larry!  No wonder he was cross and unlike himself.  And Ruth was so sweet—­just the girl for him.  And poor Uncle Phil!  She herself was hurting him dreadfully keeping her secret about Alan and nobody knew what Ted had up his sleeve under his cloak of incredible virtue.  And now here was Larry with a worse complication still.  Oh dear!  Would the three of them ever stop getting into scrapes as long as they lived?  It was bad enough when they were children.  It was infinitely worse now they were grown up and the scrapes were so horribly serious.

“I suppose you can’t tear yourself away from your studies to attend a mere dance?” Doctor Holiday was asking of his younger nephew with a twinkle in his eyes when Tony recovered enough to listen again.

Ted sent his cigarette stub careening off into the shrubbery and grinned back at his uncle, a grin half merry, half defiant.

“Like fun, I can’t!” he ejaculated.  “I’m a union man, I am.  I’ve done my stunt for the day.  If anybody thinks I’m going to stick my nose in between the covers of a book before nine A.M. tomorrow he has a whole orchard of brand new little thinks growing up to stub his toes on, that’s all.”

“So the student life doesn’t improve with intimate acquaintance?” The doctor’s voice was still teasing, but there was more than teasing behind his questions.  He was really interested in his nephew’s psychology.

“Not a da—­ahem—­darling bit.  If I had my way every book in existence would be placed on a huge funeral pyre and conflagrated instantly.  Moreover, it would be a criminal offence punishable by the death sentence for any person to bring another of the infernal nuisances into the world.  That is my private opinion publicly expressed.”  So saying Ted picked himself up from the grass and sauntered off toward the house.

His uncle chuckled.  He was sorry the boy did not take more cordially to books, since it looked as if there were a good two years of them ahead at the least.  But he liked the honesty that would not pretend to anything it did not feel, and he liked even better the spirit that had kept the lad true to his pledge of honest work without a squirm or grumble through all these weeks of grilling summer weather when sustained effort of any sort, particularly mental effort, was undoubtedly a weariness and abomination to flesh and soul, to his restless, volatile, ease-addicted, liberty loving young ward.  The boy had certainly shown more grit and grace than he had credited him with possessing.