unt stole a glance at
his companion, wondering if it were the small disappointment which made
her silent.

"Are you tired?" he asked quickly.

"Oh, no," she rejoined, brightening again. "I have enjoyed every minute
of it. I was just thinking of what I said a little while ago; of how it
is going to break my heart to leave it all."

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that she needn't leave it.
But he remembered and caught himself sharply. When the dreadful Tuesday
should have come and gone, she might be only too willing to go away;
and, in any event, he would have to go. There would be no place in his
own and his father's State for him after Gryson returned, and the match
had been touched to the hidden mine of high explosives. This was what
was in his mind when he said rather tamely: "I suppose you will have to
go. There isn't any chance for social-settlement work out here yet."

"No," she responded half-absently; and thereupon he gave the little car
still more spark and throttle and sent it flying over the final stretch
of the fine road to the city.

The electric lights were showing like faint yellow stars against the
sunset sky when Blount skilfully placed the small car at the
Inter-Mountain curb and lifted his companion to the sidewalk.

"Are you going anywhere to-night?" he asked.

"I don't know," was the reply. "There is a 'crush' on at the
Weatherfords', but I don't know whether Mrs. Blount has accepted for us
or not."

"Don't go," he pleaded quickly. "Back out of it some way, and give me
just this one evening to myself. Won't you do that, Patricia?"

"I'll try," she agreed. "But if Mrs. Blount has accepted--"

"Confound Mrs. Blount!" he growled. And then the newly aroused underman
in him added: "You tell her that I want you to give me the evening, and
let that settle it."

As it turned out a little later, Miss Anners found it unnecessary to be
rude to her hostess. For some reason best known to herself, Mrs. Honoria
had declined the invitation--engraved in the correctest shaded Old
English and made to include the senator and Miss Anners--and was
planning a free evening for herself and her guest.

After the _cafe_ dinner--a dinner at which Evan Blount, once more
calling himself all the hard names in the hypocrite's vocabulary, made
the fourth--Mrs. Honoria proposed an adjournment to the hotel parlors,
which were in the mezzanine lounge. Later, she found herself alone on
the divan which had bee