other. It was on such nights that his comrades had talked to him
in France. Under the moon they had seemed self-conscious. But beneath
a sky of stars, the words had come to them.

As he sat at his desk later, he thought of all that the Major had said
to him: that possessions had nothing to do with love; that the test
must be, "What would there be in me to like if I were stripped of all
my worldly goods?"

Well, he had nothing. There were only his hopes, his dreams, his
aspirations--himself.

Would these weigh with any woman in the balance against George Dalton's
splendid trappings?

The dawn crept in and found him still sitting at his desk. He had not
written a dozen lines. But his thoughts had been the long, long
thoughts of youth.

CHAPTER VI

GEORGIE-PORGIE

I

It would never have happened if Aunt Claudia had been there. Aunt
Claudia would have built hedges about Becky. She would have warned the
Judge. She would, as a last resort, have challenged Dalton. But Fate,
which had Becky's future well in hand, had sent Aunt Claudia to meet
Truxton in New York. And she was having the time of her life.

Her first letter was a revelation to her niece. "I didn't know," she
told the Judge at breakfast, "that Aunt Claudia could be like this----"

"Like what?"

"So young and gay----"

"She is not old. And when she was young she was gayer than you."

"Oh, not really, Grandfather."

"Yes. And she looked like you--and had the same tricks with her hands,
and her hair was bright and brown. And she was very pretty."

"She is pretty yet," said Becky, loyally, but she was quite sure that
whatever might have been Aunt Claudia's likeness to herself in the
past, her own charms would not in the future shrink to fit Aunt
Claudia's present pattern. It was unthinkable that her pink and white
should fade to paleness, her slenderness to stiffness, her youthful
radiance to a sort of weary cheerfulness.

There was nothing weary in the letter, however. "Oh, my dear, my dear,
you should see Truxton. He is so perfectly splendid that I am sure he
is a changeling and not my son. I tell him that he can't be the bundle
of cuddly sweetness that I used to carry in my arms. I wore your white
house-coat that first morning, Becky, and he sent some roses, and we
had breakfast together in my rooms at the hotel. I believe it is the
first time in years that I have looked into a mirror to really like my
looks. You we