illed one as Agatha's quiet glances sometimes did.

"Sally," he said, "you've grown prettier than ever."

The girl turned partly towards him with a slow, sinuous movement.

"Now," she replied quickly, "you oughtn't to say those things to me."

Hawtrey laughed; he was usually sure of his ground with Sally.

"Why shouldn't I, when I'm telling the truth?"

"For one thing, Miss Ismay wouldn't like it."

Gregory's face hardened. "I'm not sure she'd mind. Anyway, Miss Ismay
doesn't like many things I'm in the habit of doing."

Sally, who had watched him closely, turned away again, but a thrill of
exultation ran through her. It had been with dismay she had first heard
him speak of his marriage, and she had fled home in an agony of anger
and humiliation. That state of mind, however, had not lasted long, and
when it became evident that the wedding was postponed indefinitely, she
began to wonder whether it was quite impossible that Hawtrey should come
back to her. She felt that he belonged to her, although he had never
given her any very definite claim on him. She was primitive and
passionate, but she was determined, and now that he had done what she
had almost expected him to do, she meant to keep him.

"You have fallen out?" she inquired, and contrived to keep the anxiety
that she was conscious of out of her voice.

The question, and more particularly the form of it, jarred upon Hawtrey,
but he answered it.

"Oh, no," he said. "As a matter of fact, Sally, you can't fall out
nicely with everybody. Now when we fell out you got delightfully
angry--I don't know whether you were more delightful then or when you
graciously agreed to make it up again." He laughed. "I almost wish I
could make you a little angry now."

Sally had moved nearer him to take a kettle off the stove, and she
looked down on him with her eyes shining in the lamplight. She realized
that she would have to fight Miss Ismay for the man; but there was this
in her favor--that she appealed directly to one side of his nature, as
Agatha, even if she had loved him, could not have attracted him.

"Would you?" she asked. "Dare you try?"

"I might if I was tempted sufficiently."

She leaned upon the table still looking at him mockingly, and she was
probably aware that her pose and expression challenged him. Indeed, she
could not have failed to recognize the meaning of the sudden tightening
of his lips, though she did not in the least shrink from it. She had n