r father. Capital stock, twenty-five
thousand dollars, one half paid up. Your father to be employed as
director of the laboratories at five thousand a year, with a fund of ten
thousand to draw upon. You to be employed as secretary and treasurer at
fifteen hundred a year. I will take the paid-up stock, and your father
and you will have the privilege of buying it back at par within five
years. Do you follow me?"

"I think I understand," was her unexpected reply. Her replies were
usually unexpected, like the expressions of her face and figure; she was
continually comprehending where one would have said she would not, and
not comprehending where it seemed absurd that she should not. "Yes, I
understand. . . . What else?"

"Nothing else."

She looked intently at him, and her eyes seemed to be reading his soul
to the bottom.

"Nothing else," he repeated.

"No obligation--for money--or--for anything?"

"No obligation. A hope perhaps." He was smiling with the gayest good
humor. "But not the kind of hope that ever becomes a disagreeable demand
for payment."

She seated herself, her hands in her lap, her eyes down--a lovely
picture of pensive repose. He waited patiently, feasting his senses upon
her delicate, aromatic loveliness. At last she said:

"I accept."

He had anticipated an argument. This promptness took him by surprise. He
felt called upon to explain, to excuse her acceptance. "I am taking a
little flyer--making a gamble," said he. "Your father may turn up
nothing of commercial value. Again the company may pay big----"

She gave him a long look through half-closed eyes, a queer smile
flitting round her lips. "I understand perfectly why you are doing it,"
she said. "Do you understand why I am accepting?"

"Why should you refuse?" rejoined he. "It is a good business prop----"

"You know very well why I should refuse. But--" She gave a quiet laugh
of experience; it made him feel that she was making a fool of him--"I
shall not refuse. I am able to take care of myself. And I want father to
have his chance. Of course, I shan't explain to him." She gave him a
mischievous glance. "And I don't think _you_ will."

He contrived to cover his anger, doubt, chagrin, general feeling of
having been outwitted. "No, I shan't tell him," laughed he. "You are
making a great fool of me."

"Do you want to back out?"

What audacity! He hesitated--did not dare. Her indifference to him--her
personal, her physical indifference