y kindness met their
view.

"Oh, come along in!" cried the girl cheerily. "I have just been
ballyragging Mr. Bulstrode!"

De Presle-Vaulx came eagerly forward:

"Don't listen to her, Monsieur! Molly's tired out after so much
success."

The startled benefactor looked doubtfully from her to the young man.

"And you?"

"Oh, I?" shrugged De Presle-Vaulx, "I'm already half cowboy!"

Mary Falconer put her arm round Molly's waist, drew her to her, "and
Molly is more than half Marquise."

"Mr. Bulstrode," again cried the girl impetuously. "_Please_ reason
with him! He's horribly obstinate. You have put this dreadful idea in
his head; now please tell him how _ridiculous_ it is. If he goes West
and spoils his career and breaks with his family, I'll never marry him!
As it is, I will wait for ever!"

"But my dear child!" Mary Falconer was determined to have the whole
thing out before them, "you don't seem to get it into your head that
you have neither of you a sou, and Maurice can never earn any money in
France."

Miss Malines, to whom money meant that she drew on her father, the
extravagant stockbroker whose seat even in the Stock Exchange was
mortgaged, and who had not ten thousand dollars' capital in the
world--lost countenance here at the cruel and vulgar introduction of
the commodity on which life turns. She sighed, her lips trembled, and
she capitulated:

"Oh, if that's really true ... as I suppose it is----"

Bulstrode watched her, she had grown pale--she drew a deep breath, and,
looking up, not at her lover, but at the elder man, said softly:

"Why, I guess I'll have to give him quite up then."

But here De Presle-Vaulx made an exclamation, and before them all took
Molly in his arms:

"No," he said tenderly, "never, never! _That_ the last of all! Mr.
Bulstrode is right. I must work for you, and I will. We'll both go
West together. Couldn't you? Wouldn't you come with me?"

... "And your mother?" asked the girl.

"Nothing--" De Presle-Vaulx whispered, "nothing, counts but _you_."

Over their heads Bulstrode met his friend's eye, and in his were--he
could not help it--triumph, keen delight, and in hers there was anger
at him and tears.

At this moment the waiter put his head in at the door and implored
Monsieur to come down if he wanted the seat in the window.

"Oh, we're coming!" Mrs. Falconer cried impatiently. "Molly, there's
some eau-de-cologne on the table. Put it on your eyes.