or
position.

"The stage doesn't appeal to you any more, then?" Mrs.
Franklyn-Haldene.

"Not in the least. It never did appeal to me. I am so far away from it
now that I am losing the desire to witness plays."

"And for whom will Mr. Warrington write his plays now?"

"The vacancy I made has long ago been filled. I was but one in a
thousand to interpret his characters. There is always a lack of plays,
but never of actors."

"Excuse me for a moment." It was Patty this time.

"Certainly, my dear."

Warrington heard nothing more for several minutes.

"Is it true what I hear about Patty and that rich young Mr. Whiteland,
of New York?"

"What is it that you have heard?"

"Why, that their engagement is about to be announced."

Warrington stood perfectly still. Whiteland had been a guest at the
Adirondack bungalow earlier in the summer. He waited for the answer,
and it seemed to him that it would never come.

"I am not engaged to any one, Mrs. Haldene, and I hope you will do me
the favor to deny the report whenever you come across it." Patty had
returned. "It seems incredible that a young man may not call upon a
young woman without their names becoming coupled matrimonially."

"Nevertheless, he is regarded as extremely eligible."

"I have often wondered over Haldene's regular Saturday night jag at
the club," said John, stringing his count, "but I wonder no longer.
They say she never goes out Saturdays."

Warrington heard the words, but the sense of them passed by. He could
realize only one thing, and that was, he loved Patty better than all
the world. He could accept his own defeat with philosophy, but another
man's success!--could he accept that? How strangely everything had
changed in the last few days! He had never known real mental anguish;
heartaches in others had always afforded him mild amusement and
contempt. It was one thing, he reflected, to write about human
emotions; it was entirely another thing to live and act them. He saw
that his past had been full of egotism and selfishness, but he also
saw that his selfishness was of the kind that has its foundation in
indifference and not in calculation. The voices went on down stairs,
but he ceased to pay any attention to them.

"John, there's been something in my mind for many months."

"What is it?"

"Do you recollect the night you came into my rooms in New York?"

"I shall never forget it," quietly.

"Your wife was there."

"I know it. I found