she gave
up for him."

"Oh, but--she loved him," explained Laura LaRue's daughter simply.

Again Hempel nodded.

"She did," he admitted grimly. After all these years there was no use
admitting that that had been the deepest rub of all, that Laura had loved
Ned Holiday and had never, for even the span of a moment, thought of
caring for himself. "I repeat, your father was a very lucky man--a
damnably lucky one."

And with that they shook hands and parted.

It was many months before Tony was to see Max Hempel again and many
waters were to run under the bridge before the meeting came to pass.

Outside in the car, Ted, Dick and the twins waited the arrival of the
heroine of the evening. The three latter greeted her with a burst of
prideful congratulation; the former, being merely a brother, was
distinctly cross at having been kept waiting so long and did not hesitate
to express his sentiments fully out loud. But Doctor Holiday cut short
his nephew's somewhat ungracious speech by a quiet reminder that the car
was here primarily for Tony's use, and the boy subsided, having no more
to say until, having deposited the occupants of the car at their various
destinations, he announced to his uncle with elaborate carelessness that
he would take the car around to the garage.

But he did not turn in at the side street where the garage was. Instead
he shot out Elm Street, "hitting her up" at forty. There had been a
reason for his impatience. Ted Holiday had important private business to
transact ere cock crow.

Tony lay awake a long time that night, dreaming dreams that carried her
far and far into the future, until Rosalind's happy triumph of the
evening almost faded away in the glory of the yet-to-be. It was
characteristic of the girl's stage of development that in all her dreams,
no lovers, much less a possible husband, ever once entered. Tony Holiday
was in love with life and life alone that wonderful June night. As Hempel
had shrewdly perceived she was conscious of having wings and desirous of
flying far and free with them ere she came to pause.

She did remember, in passing however, how she had caught Dick's eyes
once as he sat in the box near the stage, and how his rapt gaze had
thrilled her to intenser playing of her part. And she remembered how
dear he was afterward in the car when he held her roses and told her
softly what a wonderful, wonderful Rosalind she was. But, on the whole,
Dick, like most of the rest of the