s
chock full of ideals. And he's making the sort of career she could
sympathize with."

"Scarborough!" exclaimed Gladys, with some success at self-concealment.
"I detest him! I detest 'careers'!"

"Good," said Langdon, his face serious, his eyes amused. "That opens
the way for my other shock."

"Oh, the good news. What is it?"

"That I'd like it if you'd marry me."

Gladys glanced into his still amused eyes, then with a shrug sank back
among her wraps. "A poor joke," she said.

"I should say that marriage was a stale joke rather than a poor one.
Will you try it--with me? You might do worse."

"How did you have the courage to speak when I'm looking such a wreck?"
she asked with mock gravity.

"But you ain't--you're looking better now. That first shock braced you
up. Besides, this isn't romance. It's no high flight with all the
longer drop and all the harder jolt at the landing. It's a plain,
practical proposition."

Gladys slowly sat up and studied him curiously.

"Do you really mean it?" she asked. Each was leaning on an elbow,
gazing gravely into the other's face.

"I'd never joke on such a dangerous subject as marriage. I'm far too
timid for that. What do you say, Gladys?"

She had never seen him look serious before, and she was thinking that
the expression became him.

"He knows how to make himself attractive to a woman when he cares to,"
she said to herself.

"I'd like a man that has lightness of mind. Serious people bore one so
after a while." By "serious people" she meant one serious person whom
she had admired particularly for his seriousness. But she was in
another mood now, another atmosphere--the atmosphere she had breathed
since she was thirteen, except in the brief period when her infatuation
for Scarborough had swept her away from her world.

"No!" She shook her head with decision--and felt decided. But to his
practised ear there was in her voice a hint that she might hear him
further on the subject.

They lay back in their chairs, he watching the ragged, dirty, scurrying
clouds, she watching him. After a while he said: "Where are you going
when we reach the other side?"

"To join mother and auntie."

"And how long will you stay with them?"

"Not more than a week, I should say," she answered with a grimace.

"And then--where?"

She did not reply for some time. Studying her face, he saw an
expression of lonesomeness gather and strengthen and deepen until she
lo