n on the old footing."

He shook his head.

"Hello!" Dave Harney touched his cap and slowed down loose-jointedly.
"Sorry you didn't take my tip? Dogs gone up a dollar a pound since
yesterday, and still a-whoopin'. Good-afternoon, Miss Frona, and Mr.
Corliss. Goin' my way?"

"Miss Welse is." Corliss touched the visor of his cap and half-turned on
his heel.

"Where're you off to?" Dave demanded.

"Got an appointment," he lied.

"Remember," Frona called to him, "you must come and see me."

"Too busy, I'm afraid, just now. Good-by. So long, Dave."

"Jemimy!" Dave remarked, staring after him; "but he's a hustler. Always
busy--with big things, too. Wonder why he didn't go in for dogs?"

CHAPTER XV

But Corliss did go back to see her, and before the day was out. A
little bitter self-communion had not taken long to show him his
childishness. The sting of loss was hard enough, but the thought, now
they could be nothing to each other, that her last impressions of him
should be bad, hurt almost as much, and in a way, even more. And
further, putting all to the side, he was really ashamed. He had
thought that he could have taken such a disappointment more manfully,
especially since in advance he had not been at all sure of his footing.

So he called upon her, walked with her up to the Barracks, and on the
way, with her help, managed to soften the awkwardness which the morning
had left between them. He talked reasonably and meekly, which she
countenanced, and would have apologized roundly had she not prevented
him.

"Not the slightest bit of blame attaches to you," she said. "Had I
been in your place, I should probably have done the same and behaved
much more outrageously. For you were outrageous, you know."

"But had you been in my place, and I in yours," he answered, with a
weak attempt at humor, "there would have been no need."

She smiled, glad that he was feeling less strongly about it.

"But, unhappily, our social wisdom does not permit such a reversal," he
added, more with a desire to be saying something.

"Ah!" she laughed. "There's where my Jesuitism comes in. I can rise
above our social wisdom."

"You don't mean to say,--that--?"

"There, shocked as usual! No, I could not be so crude as to speak
outright, but I might _finesse_, as you whist-players say. Accomplish
the same end, only with greater delicacy. After all, a distinction
without a difference."

"Could you?" he aske