about marrying her--"

"She won't marry you," Willy Cameron said steadily. "That's not the
point I want your own acknowledgment of responsibility, that's all."

Akers was puzzled, suspicious, and yet relieved. He lighted a cigarette
and over the match stared at the other man's quiet face.

"No!" he said suddenly. "I'm damned if I'll take the responsibility. She
knew her way around long before I ever saw her. Ask her. She can't lie
about it. I can produce other men to prove what I say. I played around
with her, but I don't know whose child that is, and I don't believe she
does."

"I think you are lying."

"All right. But I can produce the goods."

Willy Cameron went very pale. His hands were clenched again, and Akers
eyed him warily.

"None of that," he cautioned. "I don't know what interest you've got in
this, and I don't give a God-damn. But you'd better not try any funny
business with me."

Willy Cameron smiled. Much the sort of smile he had worn during the
rioting.

"I don't like to soil my hands on you," he said, "but I don't mind
telling you that any man who ruins a girl's life and then tries to get
out of it by defaming her, is a skunk."

Akers lunged at him.

Some time later Mr. William Wallace Cameron descended to the street.
He wore his coat collar turned up to conceal the absence of certain
articles of wearing apparel which he had mysteriously lost. And he wore,
too, a somewhat distorted, grim and entirely complacent smile.

CHAPTER XXV

The city had taken the rioting with a weary philosophy. It was tired of
fighting. For two years it had labored at high tension for the European
war. It had paid taxes and bought bonds, for the war. It had saved and
skimped and denied itself, for the war. And for the war it had made
steel, steel for cannon and for tanks, for ships and for railroads. It
had labored hard and well, and now all it wanted was to be allowed to
get back to normal things. It wanted peace.

It said, in effect: "I have both fought and labored, sacrificed and
endured. Give me now my rest of nights, after a day's work. Give me
marriage and children. Give me contentment. Give me the things I have
loved long since, and lost awhile."

And because the city craved peace, it was hard to rouse it to its
danger. It was war-weary, and its weariness was not of apathy, but of
exhaustion. It was not yet ready for new activity.

Then, the same night that had seen Willy Cameron's encounter wi