And the shadow cast by the vines was not a wide shadow at all.
PART II
I
DAHLIA AND THE PROFESSOR
Amen
Stuck in my throat.
--_Macbeth._
The Skeptic and his wife, Hepatica, being happily established in a
beautifully spacious flat in town, measuring thirty feet by forty over
all, invited me to visit them. As both had spent considerable time at my
country home in summer, they insisted that it was only just for me to
allow them, that second winter after their marriage, to return my
hospitality. This argument alone would hardly have sufficed, for winter
in the country--connected by trolley with the town--is hardly less
delightful to me than summer itself. But there were other and convincing
arguments, and they ended by bringing me to the city for a month's visit
in the heart of the season.
On the first morning at breakfast--I had arrived late the night
before--there was much to talk about.
"It's a curious fact," said the Skeptic, stirring a cup of yellow-brown
coffee with which his wife had just presented him, "as Hepatica and I
discovered only the other day, that three of those girls who visited you
that summer four years ago, when she and I were avoiding each other----"
"You--avoiding!" I interpolated.
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