e and made unerringly for the softest and finest of
fabrics, the hats with an "air," the dresses that were the simplest, the
most ravishing and it must be admitted also the most extravagant. If she
remembered nothing else Ruth remembered how to spend royally.

She had consulted the senior doctor before making the splendid plunge.
She did not want to have Larry buy her anything more and she didn't want
Doctor Philip and Margery to think her stark mad to go behaving like a
princess before the princess purse was actually in her hands. But she had
to have pretty things, a lot of them, had to have them quick. Did the
doctor mind very much advancing her some money? He could keep her rings
as security.

He had laughed indulgently and declared as the rings and the pearls too
for that matter were in his possession in the safe deposit box he should
worry. He also told her to go ahead and be as "princessy" as she liked.
He would take the risk. Whereupon he placed a generous sum of money at
her account in a Boston bank and sent her away with his blessing and an
amused smile at the femininity of females. And Ruth had gone and played
princess to her heart's content. But there was little enough of heart's
content in any of it for poor Larry. Day by day it seemed to him he could
see his fairy girl slipping away from him. Ruth was a great lady and
heiress. Who was Larry Holiday to take advantage of the fact that
circumstances had almost thrown her into his willing arms?

Moreover the information afforded as to Roderick Farringdon had put a new
idea into his head. Roderick was reported "missing." Was it not possible
that Geoffrey Annersley might be in the same category? Missing men
sometimes stayed missing in war time but sometimes also they returned as
from the dead from enemy prisons or long illnesses. What if this should
be the case with the man who was presumably Ruth's husband? Certainly it
put out of the question, if there ever had been a question in Larry's
mind, his own right to marry the girl he loved until they knew absolutely
that the way was clear.

Considering these things it was not strange that the new year found Larry
Holiday in heavy mood, morose, silent, curt and unresponsive even to his
uncle, inclined at times to snap even at his beloved little Goldilocks
whose shining new happiness exasperated him because he could not share
it. Of course he repented in sack cloth and ashes afterward, but
repentance did not prevent