ould entertain, so Farr
pondered, would come when the colonel was informed that the assault
consisted of a lone iceman making talk to women in kitchens.

"However," said the iceman to himself, as he checked a nick in a
ten-cent cube at the back of his cart. "I hold that my new motto is all
right, and old Etienne will indorse it, and he knows what self-sacrifice
consists of. It isn't rolling up your eyes and folding your hands and
saying, 'What can I do?' It's saying, 'I'll do what I can!'--and then
keeping your hands busy!"

XV

WHEN A MAID IS COY

Mr. Richard Dodd came wooing.

He waited in his gray car at the curb in front of the First National
Bank block until Kate Kilgour issued forth into the afternoon sunshine.

He called to her, holding open the side door.

"I just had to see you," he told her. "I have come down from the
capital, doing forty miles an hour. You're more precious than all the
money I have locked up in the vaults."

He did not find in her eyes any of that acclaimed glad love-light which
eager lovers seek. On the contrary, Miss Kilgour made just a bit of a
face at him and was distinctly petulant.

"I do not want to ride, Richard. I enjoy my walk. I need it after a day
at my desk."

"But I'm going to take you on a long ride into the country. We'll have
dinner at Hillcrest Inn and we'll--"

"I'll go straight home, if you please."

"Then come in here with me."

"Oh, if you insist!" She said it with weary impatience.

"Are you tired?"

"Yes."

He drove slowly. "I don't want you to work any more. You know I don't.
You know how I feel. Kate, I have published our intentions of marriage."

Her demeanor till then had been marked by tolerance, a bit pettish. Now
she turned on him the indignant stare of offended womanhood.

"Richard, I have not given you permission to do that."

"But you are going to marry me!"

"Some day. I will tell you when. I am not ready."

"You are playing with me."

"I am not so frivolous."

"But why do you keep putting it off?"

"A woman who gives herself has the right to say when it shall be."

"My God!" he raged. "I wish you would wake up."

She did not answer.

"You don't know what love is. You won't let me touch you."

"I suppose that your experience has qualified you, Richard," she
returned, half humorously, half scornfully.

"We are going to be married. Your mother is anxious for you to marry. I
am going to tell my uncle to hunt for anot