for Cummings
and won't return to Los Angeles until I bring him back with me? Just
that much and no more."

"That much and no more," John promised.

Then Gibson turned toward Consuello. She had bowed her head in her hand.
He hesitated a moment and then walked slowly to the side of her chair.

"Good-by, Conny," he said.

She looked up at him, tears brimming in her eyes, her under lip caught
between her teeth. He tried to force a smile to his lips, but it balked.

"Good-by," she said, and her voice trembled.

He turned away quickly, as if he felt he could not trust himself to be
at her side a second longer. He stopped again, facing John.

"Just one thing more, Gallant," he said.

"Yes," said John, his voice queerly out of pitch.

Gibson looked him straight in the eyes.

"You love her, don't you?" he asked.

Unable to speak what was in his heart, John stood silent. He moistened
his lips with his tongue and wondered why it was he could not shout back
his answer. Flustered by the boldness of the question put to him so
directly, a thought flashed into his mind of Betty's frank declaration
that she knew he loved Consuello. Then he discovered the reason why his
mother had been so perturbed by his frequent meetings with her. She,
too, undoubtedly knew he was in love!

While these thoughts were racing through his head, Gibson put his hand
on his shoulder.

"You need not answer, Gallant," he said, "because your silence is
enough. Regardless of how incongruous it seems in view of the great
wrong I have done her, I love her, too. And, because I love her I can
tell that you do. I can see it by the way you speak to her, the way you
look at her and unless I am greatly mistaken she knows it as well as you
and I do."

He grasped John's left hand in his own.

"Take care of her, Gallant; love her and try to make her happy," he
said. He turned and walked to the door, leaving John speechless and
motionless, staring after him. At the threshold he wheeled to face them
again.

"Exit, the villain," he said slowly and smiling.

The door closed behind him and his footsteps, taking him steadily, not
too fast, not too slowly, from the house, diminished until the only
sound audible in the room was the ticking of the clock on the mantel of
the fireplace.

John, his back toward Consuello, his eyes on the door, wondering whether
it was all a dream, a cheer in his heart for the man who had left them
so dramatically, feared to move