ou see?"

"But why should she marry?" Lionel persisted. "Isn't she all right as
she is? What do you want to marry her off for?"

"There'll be a man sooner or later," Winn explained. "There always is,
and she's--well, I didn't believe girls were innocent before. By God,
when they are, it makes you sit up! I couldn't run the risk of leaving
her alone, and that's flat! It's like chucking matches to a child and
turning your back on it.

"For after all, if a man cares about a girl the way I care about her, he
does chuck her matches. When I go--some one decent ought to be there to
take my place."

"But there isn't the slightest chance she'll like me, even if I happened
to like her," Lionel protested. "Honestly, Winn, you haven't thought the
thing out properly. You can't stick people about in each other's
places--they don't fit."

"They can be made to," said Winn, inexorably, "if they're the proper
people. She'll like you to start with, besides you read--authors. So
does she--she's awfully clever, she doesn't think anything of Marie
Corelli; and she likes a man. As to your taking to her--well, my dear
chap, you haven't seen her! I give you a week; I'll hang about till
then. You can tell me your decision at the end of it."

"That's another thing," said Lionel. "Of course you only care for the
girl, I see that, it's quite natural, but if by any chance I did pull
the thing off--what's going to happen to you and me, afterwards? I've
cared for that most, always."

A Foehn wind had begun to blow up the valley--it brought with it a
curious light that lay upon the snow like red dust. "I don't say I shall
like it," Winn said after a pause. "I'm not out to like it. There isn't
anything in the whole damned job possible for me to like. But I'd a lot
rather have it than any other way. I think that ought to show you what I
think of you. You needn't be afraid I'll chuck you for seeing me
through. I might keep away for a time, but I'd come back. She isn't the
kind of a woman that makes a difference between friends."

"Oh, all right," said Lionel after a pause, "I'll go in for it--if I
can."

Winn got up and replaced his pipe carefully, shaking his ashes out on to
the snow. "I'm sure I'm much obliged to you," he said stiffly.

The wind ran up the valley with a sound like a flying train. Neither of
them spoke while the gust lasted. It fell as suddenly as it came, and
the valley shrank back into its pall of silence.

It was so soli