We ain't
exactly popular."

This seemed to Dumont rank ingratitude. Had he not just divided a
million dollars among charities and educational institutions in the
districts where opposition to his "merger" was strongest?

"Well, we'll see," he said. "If he isn't careful we'll have to kill
him off in convention and make the committees stop his mouth."

"The trouble is he's been building up a following of his own--the sort
of following that can't be honeyfugled," replied Merriweather. "The
committees are afraid of him." Merriweather always took the gloomy view
of everything, because he thus discounted his failures in advance and
doubled the effect of his successes.

"I'll see--I'll see," said Dumont, impatiently. And he thought he was
beginning to "see" when Gladys expanded to him upon the subject of
Scarborough--his good looks, his wit, his "distinction."

Scarborough came to dinner a few evenings later and Dumont was
particularly cordial to him; and Gladys made the most of the
opportunity which Pauline again gave her. That night, when the others
had left or had gone to bed, Gladys followed her brother into the
smoke-room adjoining the library. They sat in silence drinking a
"night-cap." In the dreaminess of her eyes, in the absent smile
drifting round the corners of her full red lips, Gladys showed that her
thoughts were pleasant and sentimental.

"What do you think of Scarborough?" her brother asked suddenly.

She started but did not flush--in her long European experience she had
gained control of that signal of surprise. "How do you mean?" she
asked. She rarely answered a question immediately, no matter how
simple it was, but usually put another question in reply. Thus she
insured herself time to think if time should be necessary.

"I mean, do you like him?"

"Why, certainly. But I've seen him only a few times."

"He's an uncommon man," continued her brother. "He'd make a mighty
satisfactory husband for an ambitious woman, especially one with the
money to push him fast."

Gladys slowly lifted and slowly lowered her smooth, slender shoulders.

"That sort of thing doesn't interest a woman in a man, unless she's
married to him and has got over thinking more about him than about
herself."

"It ought to," replied her brother. "A clever woman can always slosh
round in sentimental slop with her head above it and cool. If I were a
girl I'd make a dead set for that chap."

"If you were a girl,"