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there might be something to account for her patience with the twins, something more rational than a bewitched preoccupation with the mysteries of a sun cult. Vega might be suffering from a guilty conscience where the young Malcolms were concerned. She really might have influenced her husband against them when he made his will. She might have read something in the stars—or the sun—which told her to make amends. In that case she wouldn’t allow her stepchildren’s rudeness to dissuade her from giving them money.
    He remarked, in the tone of one who brings matters to a plane where everybody must feel at home: “I never did think that Casca was entirely right when he snubbed Brutus about the stars.”
    â€œAnd who, pray,” asked Vega, smilingly, “was Casca?”
    â€œPay no attention to him,” said Redfield, “or to David either. They’re both showing off. Why not? David is a prodigy who hasn’t had a chance to express himself creatively yet; and as for Gamadge, what can you expect of an intelligence so perverse that its owner can only refer to his son and heir as a sky-blue bassinet?”
    David Malcolm, with a faint indication of distaste for this domestic reminder, said that it surely couldn’t be showing off on Mr. Gamadge’s part to allude to anything so obvious as Julius Caesar.
    â€œI owe you one,” said Gamadge, smiling at him.
    â€œBut Casca isn’t obvious to me,” declared Vega.
    â€œJust a friend of dear Brutus’,” Malcolm told her, “informing him that man is master of his fate.”
    â€œI hate to seem pedantic,” said Gamadge, “but I must point out that Casca qualified his statement. He only said that men are at some time masters of their fate.”
    David Malcolm grinned. “Now we’re even,” he said.
    â€œEr—not quite.”
    Vega looked bewildered.
    Miss Ryder and Mrs. Drummond approached the circle, chairs were rearranged. Abigail addressed Redfield accusingly:
    â€œJohnny, you’ve lost a tree out of your boundary hedge.”
    â€œDon’t remind me, Abby! It went in February. Some blight.”
    â€œDid you know,” she continued, and the oblique approach to her subject amused Gamadge very much, “that people can see right across the lawn and right into your rose garden?”
    â€œCan they? I didn’t realize that the gap was in a straight line from the archway. And why should I mind their seeing in?”
    â€œNo reason why, if you don’t mind giving them a shock.”
    â€œShock?”
    â€œJohnny, what is that horrid wooden image you’ve put up there?”
    â€œOh!” Redfield glanced at Vega, who looked complacent. “You had a glimpse of our little monster, had you?”
    â€œLet’s make them guess what it is,” said Vega, swinging her foot until the sandal hung from one toe. “And guess where it came from.”
    â€œI guess that it once held something in its hands,” said Gamadge.
    â€œIt held a lyre, Mr. Gamadge!” Vega was delighted with him. “At least Johnny and I are sure it held a lyre. Now there’s a clue for you!”
    â€œWait a minute.” Gamadge smiled at her. “Did you make Johnny put the thing up?”
    â€œOf course I did.”
    â€œAnd your favorite star is now our own star—the sun. Is it a figure of Apollo?”
    â€œOf course! Didn’t you see the rays on his head?”
    â€œWell, I never saw a wooden image of Apollo before in all my life.”
    â€œAnd why,” asked David Malcolm in his tired monotone, “why Apollo in a rose garden?”
    â€œApollo Smintheus,” said Gamadge. “And by the look on your face, Mr. Malcolm, I think that now we are even.”
    â€œWe are. I don’t know Apollo in that role, whatever it may be.”
    â€œDestroyer of field mice.” Gamadge turned to accept another cocktail from Alice, and