eep happening. Even though
I travel about with a book to sell, I--shall never lose the sense
of--being under the protection of a home such as other girls have."

"I wouldn't have you lose it--good heavens, no! I only--well--" And now
he stopped, set his teeth for an instant, and then plunged ahead. "But
there's something I can't lose either, and it's--you!"

She looked at him then, evidently startled. "Mr. King, will you drive
on, please?" she said very quietly, but he felt something in her tone
which for an instant he did not understand. In the next instant he
thought he did understand it.

He spoke hurriedly: "You don't know me very well yet, do you? But I
thought you knew me well enough to know that I wouldn't say a thing like
that unless I meant all that goes with it--and follows it. You see--I
love you. If--if you are not afraid of a man in a plaster jacket--it'll
come off some day, you know--I ask you to marry me."

There was a long silence then, in which King felt his heart pumping
away for dear life. He had taken the bit between his teeth now,
certainly, and offered this girl, of whom he knew less than of any human
being in whom he had the slightest interest, all that he had to give.
Yet--he was so sure he knew her that, the words once out, he realized
that he was glad he had spoken them.

At last she turned toward him. "You are a very brave man," she said,
"and a very chivalrous man."

He laughed rather huskily. "It doesn't take much of either bravery or
chivalry for a man to offer himself to you."

"It must take plenty of both. You are--what you are, in the big world
you live in. And you dare to trust an absolute stranger, whom you have
no means of knowing better, with that name of yours. Think, Mr. Jordan
King, what that name means to you--and to your mother."

"I have thought. And I offer it to you. And I do know what you are. You
can't disguise yourself--any more than the Princess in the fairy tale.
Do you think all those notes I had from you at the hospital didn't tell
the story? I don't know why you are selling books from door to door--and
I don't want to know. What I do understand is--that you are the first of
your family to do it!"

"Mr. King," she said gravely, "women are very clever at one
thing--cleverer than men. With a little study, a little training, a
little education, they can make a brave showing. I have known a shopgirl
who, after six months of living with a very charming society wom