ftened and ready to meet him half way. The
right kind of humility in Monty would have found her plastic. But she
had very definite and rigid ideas of his duty in the premises. And
Monty was too simple minded to seem to suffer, and much too flippant to
understand. It was plain to each that the other did not expect to talk,
but they both realized that they owed a duty to appearances and to
their hostess. Through two courses, at least, there was dead silence
between them. It seemed as though every eye in the room were on them
and every mind were speculating. At last, in sheer desperation, Barbara
turned to him with the first smile he had seen on her face in days.
There was no smile in her eyes, however, and Monty understood.

"We might at least give out the impression that we are friends," she
said quietly.

"More easily said than done," he responded gloomily.

"They are all looking at us and wondering."

"I don't blame them."

"We owe something to Mrs. Dan, I think."

"I know."

Barbara uttered some inanity whenever she caught any one looking in
their direction, but Brewster seemed not to hear. At length he cut
short some remark of hers about the weather.

"What nonsense this is, Barbara," he said. "With any one else I would
chuck the whole game, but with you it is different. I don't know what I
have done, but I am sorry. I hope you'll forgive me."

"Your assurance is amusing, to say the least."

"But I am sure. I know this quarrel is something we'll laugh over. You
keep forgetting that we are going to be married some day."

A new light came into Barbara's eyes. "You forget that my consent may
be necessary," she said.

"You will be perfectly willing when the time comes. I am still in the
fight and eventually you will come to my way of thinking."

"Oh! I see it now," said Barbara, and her blood was up. "You mean to
force me to it. What you did for father--"

Brewster glowered at her, thinking that he had misunderstood. "What do
you mean?" he said.

"He has told me all about that wretched bank business. But poor father
thought you quite disinterested. He did not see the little game behind
your melodrama. He would have torn up your check on the instant if he
had suspected you were trying to buy his daughter."

"Does your father believe that?" asked Brewster.

"No, but I see it all now. His persistence and yours--you were not slow
to grasp the opportunity offered."

"Stop, Miss Drew," Monty commanded. H