The annoyance of Miss Gault, thus expended upon both men, had the natural effect, as they went off together, of closing up in a measure the rift between them.

They passed the swings on their way, and a common masculine weakness for the sight of ruffled skirts held them for a moment behind a group of hobbledehoys who were enjoying this spectacle.

“They love swinging,” remarked Wolf carelessly, as Weevil and he moved away at last; “but those boys being there makes it delicious for them.”

Bob Weevil sighed deeply; and this pitiful sigh, rising up from the young man’s aggravated senses went wavering skyward. Past a high trail of flapping rooks, heading for Nevilton, it went; past the flocks of the white clouds. At last, far beyond all human knowledge, it lost itself in the incredible desirableness of lovely blue space, and mingled, for all we know, with the vast nonhuman sighing of the planet itself, teased by some monstrous cosmogonic lust!