to-night."

She tried to dismiss from her mind its new and ugly consciousness. She
tried to smile. The result was an expression strange enough.

Sylvester, however, missed it. He was dressed in one of the brown
checked suits, a new one, freshly creased; there was a red wild-rose bud
in his buttonhole. The emerald gleamed on his well-kept, sallow hand. He
was sipping from his glass and had put a confidential hand on Thatcher's
shoulder. He grinned at Carthy.

"Well, sir," he said, "nobody has in-quired as to my celebration. But I'm
not proud. I'll tell you. I'm celebratin' to-night the winnin' of a bet."

"That's sure a deservin' cause," said Thatcher.

"Yes, sir. Had a bet with Carthy here. Look at him blush! Carthy sure-ly
hates to be wrong. And he's mostly right in his prog-nos-ti-cations. He
sure is. You bet yer. That's why I'm so festive."

"What'd he prognosticate?" asked Thatcher obligingly. He had moved his
shoulder away from Hudson's hand.

Sylvester wrinkled his upper lip into its smile and looked down into his
glass. He turned his emerald.

"Carthy prophesied that about this time a little--er--dream--of mine
would go bust," said Hudson. He lifted up his eyes pensively to Sheila,
first his eyes and then his glass. "Here's to my dream--you, girl," he
said softly.

He drank with his eyes upon her face, drew a deep breath, and looked
about the room.

Thatcher glanced from him to Sheila. "Goodnight to you, ma'am," he said
with gentleness. "Next time I'll bring the boy."

"Please, please do."

Sheila put her hand in his. He looked down at it as though something had
startled him. In fact, her touch was like a flake of snow.

When Thatcher had gone, Sylvester leaned closer to her across the bar. He
moved his glass around in his hand and looked up at her humbly.

"The tables kind of turned, eh?" he said.

"What do you mean, Mr. Hudson?" Sheila, by lifting her voice, tried to
dissipate the atmosphere of confidence, of secrecy. Carthy had moved away
from them, the other occupants of the saloon were very apparently not
listening.

"Well, ma'am," Sylvester explained, "six months ago I was kind of layin'
claim to gratitude from you, and now it's the other way round."

"Yes," she said. "But I am still grateful." The words came, however, with
a certain unwillingness, a certain lack of spontaneity.

"Are you, though?" He put his head on one side so that Sheila was
reminded of Dickie. For the first time a