lk to you about--about my
sister. Isn't she splendid?"

"She is!" There was no wavering of her thoughts as Maggie emphatically
said this.

"I'm mighty glad you like her. She certainly liked you. She's all the
family I've got, and since you two hit it off so well together I hope--I
hope, Maggie--"

And then Dick plunged into it, stammeringly, but earnestly. He told
her how much he loved her, in old phrases that his boyish ardor made
vibrantly new. He loved her! And if she would marry him, her influence
would make him take the brace all his friends had urged upon him. She'd
make him a man! And she could see how pleased it would make his sister.
And he would do his best to make Maggie happy--his very best!

The young super-adventuress--she herself had mentally used the word
"adventuress" in thinking of herself, as being more genteel and mentally
aristocratic than the cruder words by which Barney and Old Jimmie and
their kind designated a woman accomplice--this young super-adventuress,
who had schemed all this so adroitly, and worked toward it with the best
of her brain and her conscious charm, was seized with new panic as she
listened to the eager torrent of his imploring words, as she gazed into
the quivering earnestness of his frank, blue-eyed face. She wished
she could get out of the machine and run away or sink through the
floor-boards of the car. For she really liked Dick.

"I'm--I'm not so good as you think," she whispered. And then some
unsuspected force within her impelled her to say: "Dick, if you knew the
truth--"

He caught her shoulders. "I know all the truth about you I want to know!
You're wonderful, and I love you! Will you marry me? Answer that. That's
all I want to know!"

He had checked the confession that impulsively had surged toward her
lips. Silent, her eyes wide, her breath coming sharply, she sat gazing
at him.... And then from out the portion of her brain where were stored
her purposes, and the momentum of her pride and determination, there
flashed the realization that she had won! The thing that Barney and Old
Jimmie had prepared and she had so skillfully worked toward, was at last
achieved! She had only to say "yes," and either of those two plans which
Barney had outlined could at once be put in operation--and there could
be no doubt of the swift success of either. Dick's eager, trusting face
was guarantee that there would come no obstruction from him.

She felt that in some strange way