his head. "You have done everything in your power.
Dysart has been fairly warned. Besides, who knows?" he added rather
flippantly. "They may strike a hundred inches of water, as your father
predicts."

"I have not been objecting merely to rid myself of responsibility; I
have never felt any. I only wanted--I hoped"--She stopped, aware of the
unresponsive chill that always came at mention of her father. "I _know_
he is honest."

"Of course," protested Palmerston, with artificial warmth; "and, really,
I think the place for the work is well selected. I am not much of an
engineer, but I went up the other day and looked about, and there are
certainly indications of water. I"--he stopped suddenly, aware of his
mistake.

The girl had not noticed it. "I wish I could make people over," she
said, curling her fingers about her thumb, and striking the arm of her
chair with the soft side of the resultant fist, after the manner of
women.

Her companion laughed.

"Not every person, I hope; not this one, at least." He drew the
photograph from his breast pocket and held it toward her. She took it
from him, and looked at it absently an instant.

"What a pretty girl!" she said, handing it back to him. "Your sister?"

The young man flushed. "No; my fiancee."

She held out her hand and took the card again, looking at it with fresh
eyes.

"A _very_ pretty girl," she said. "What is her name?"

"Elizabeth Arnold."

"Where does she live?"

Palmerston mentioned a village in Michigan. His companion gave another
glance at the picture, and laid it upon the arm of the chair. The young
man rescued it from her indifference with a little irritable jerk. She
was gazing unconsciously toward the horizon.

"Don't you intend to congratulate me?" he inquired with a nettled laugh.

She turned quickly, flushing to her forehead. "Pardon me. I said she was
very pretty--I thought young men found that quite sufficient. I have
never heard them talk much of girls in any other way. But perhaps I
should have told you: I care very little about photographs, especially
of women. They never look like them. They always make me think of paper
dolls."

She halted between her sentences with an ungirlish embarrassment which
Palmerston was beginning to find dangerously attractive.

"But the women themselves--you find them interesting?"

"Oh, yes; some of them. Mrs. Dysart, for instance. As soon as she
learned I had no mother, she invited me to a mothers' m