CHAPTER 10

"Alex Sterling?" demanded Lily. "What Alex Sterling?"

Before I could reply that he was my neighbor, dinner was announced; Alex Sterling, moving me from the room as if he were moving a checker to another square.

Languidly, their hands lightly on their hips, the two young women led us out onto a rosy-colored porch open to the sunset where four candles flickered on the table in the dimming wind.

"Why CANDLES?" Lily objected, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. "In two weeks it'll be the longest day of the year." She looked at us all radiantly. "Do you

always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it."

"We ought to plan something," yawned Miss Taylor, sitting down at the table as if getting into bed.

"All right," said Lily. "What'll we plan?" She turned to me helplessly. "What do people plan?"

Before I could answer, her eyes fixed with an awed expression on her little finger.

"Look!" she complained. "I hurt it."

We all looked—the knuckle was black and blue.

"You did it, Alex," she said accusingly. "I know you didn't mean to but you DID do it. That's what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great big hulking physical specimen of a——"

"I hate that word hulking," objected Alex crossly,