ends? Buck up, Sweetness, and don't ever let me upset you again."

"No." She turned and looked at him, laughed. But there was a wonderful
beauty in her grey eyes and he noticed it.

"You little kiddie," he said, "your eyes are all starry like a baby's!
You are not growing up as fast as you think you are!"

She laughed again deliciously:

"How wise you are," she said.

"Aha! So you're joshing me, now!"

"But aren't you very, very wise?" she asked demurely.

"You bet I am. And I'm going to prove it."

"How, please?"

"Listen, irreverent youngster! If you are going to Foreland Farms with
me, you will require various species of clothes and accessories."

At that she was frankly dismayed:

"But I can't afford----"

"Piffle! I advance you sufficient salary. Thessalie had better advise
you in your shopping----" He hesitated, then: "You and Thessa seem to
have become excellent friends rather suddenly."

"She was so sweet to me," explained Dulcie. "I hadn't cared for her
very much--that evening of the party--but to-day she came into your
room, where I was lying on the bed, and she stood looking at me for a
moment and then she said, 'Oh, you darling!' and dropped on her knees
and drew me into her arms.... Wasn't that a curious thing to happen?
I--I was too surprised to speak for a minute; then the loveliest
shiver came over me and I--I cuddled up close to her--because I had
never remembered being in mother's arms--and it seemed wonderful--I
had wanted it so--dreamed sometimes--and awoke and cried myself to
sleep again.... She was so sweet to me.... We talked.... She told me,
finally, about the reason of her visit to you. Then she told me about
herself.... So I became her friend very quickly. And I am sure that I
am going to love her dearly.... And when I love"--she looked steadily
away from him--"I would die to serve--my friend."

The girl's quiet ardour, her simplicity and candour, attracted and
interested him. Always he had seemed to be aware, in her, of hidden
forces--of something fresh and charmingly impetuous held in leash--of
controlled impulses, restless, uneasy, bitted, curbed, and reined in.

Pride, perhaps, a natural reticence in the opposite sex--perhaps the
habit of control in a girl whose childhood had had no outlet--some of
these, he concluded, accounted for her subdued air, her restraint from
demonstration. Save for the impulsive little hand on his arm at times,
the slightest quiver of lip and voi