of the dining-room that morning, her face averted, the
desire had been steadily taking on colour and size. But, with the girl's
brave broken cry, there had come on to him an intolerable question. For
a long time he would not let the question get into words, or in any way
define itself within his brain. Still, all morning long, he recognised
that the question and that desire of his to crush Steering were ranged
before him in some sort of fierce competitive effort. A thousand times
he wished that he had had the courage to ask Sally candidly just what
she had meant, just where she stood with regard to Steering, but he knew
that he could never have asked her. Good friends though he and his
daughter were, there was between them the definite reserve that lies
between all good friends in the sphere of the big things of life. He
could not have asked her, and she could not have told him if he had
asked her.

He fretted through a busy morning in a terrible uncertainty. When Sally
had come by the bank to tell him of her proposed ride with Steering, he
had watched her with painful, anxious scrutiny. But the girl's control
had become perfect by that hour, and Madeira had to go back into the
bank with the uncertainty still thickly upon him. Pausing there in the
bank at the plate-glass window for a reflectful moment, he came to a
swift resolve. He saw that he could not afford to make any mistake. He
resolved to give Steering another chance to get right on the company
matter. When he had gone out to the curb to make an appointment for the
evening with Steering, he had told himself that it was because the boy
might as well have the chance as not have it, and, when he had gone
back, he had known that, lie to himself about it as he might, it was
because he was afraid for Sally Madeira, afraid that this Steering was
about to mean something in her life, afraid that he, as the girl's
father, might bring some unhappiness upon her.

All the long afternoon the thing continued to worry him; added to the
torment he was suffering from the burning letter in his vest-pocket, it
was well-nigh unendurable. He had to work vehemently to make the time
pass. Toward six o'clock, he began to realise that he had been shaping
the time toward the evening's appointment with Steering. As he got it
shaped he grew more peaceful. He was arranging things so that he could
win out with Steering. Little by little he came to accept the winning
out as an assured thing,