f her answer should urge it on. But when she
spoke the secretary's anger cooled and he breathed again.

"No: a thousand times, no!" she burst out passionately; and Winton
staggered as if the suddenly-freed hand had dealt him a blow.

X. SPIKED SWITCHES

For a little time after Virginia's passionate rejection of him Winton
stood abashed and confounded. Weighed in the balance of the
after-thought, his sudden and unpremeditated declaration could plead
little excuse in encouragement. And yet she had been exceedingly kind
to him.

"I have no right to expect a better answer," he said finally, when he
could trust himself to speak. "But I am like other men: I should like
to know why."

"You can ask that?" she retorted. "You say you have no right: what
have you done to expect a better answer?"

He shrugged. "Nothing, I suppose. But you knew that before."

"I only know what you have shown me during the past three weeks, and
it has proved that you are what Mr. Adams said you were--though he was
only jesting."

"And that is?"

"A _faineant_, a dilettante; a man with all the God-given ability to
do as he will and to succeed, and yet who will not take the trouble to
persevere."

Winton smiled, a grim little smile.

"You are not quite like any other woman I have ever known--not like
any other in the world, I believe. Your sisters, most of them, would
take it as the sincerest homage that a man should neglect his work for
his love. Do you care so much for success, then?"

"For the thing itself--nothing, less than nothing. But--but one may
care a little for the man who wins or loses."

He tried to take her hand again, tried and failed.

"Virginia!--is that my word of hope?"

"No. Will you never see the commonplace effrontery of it, Mr. Winton?
Day after day you have come here, idling away the precious hours that
meant everything to you, and now you come once again to offer me a
share in what you have lost. Is that your idea of chivalry, of true
manhood?"

Again the grim smile came and went.

"An unprejudiced onlooker might say that you have made me very
welcome."

"Mr. Winton! Is that generous?"

"No; perhaps it is hardly just. Because I counted the cost and have
paid the price open-eyed. You may remember that I told you that first
evening I should come as often as I dared. I knew then, what I have
known all along: that it was a part of your uncle's plan to delay my
work."

"His and mine, you mean; on