y. "Do
you mean to say that you're fooled just the same as Harry Masters and
the Pedlar and the rest of those fools--including Nick himself?"

Joe Rix was by no means willing to declare himself a fool beforehand. He
now mustered a look of much reserved wisdom.

"I have my own doubts, Nell, but I'm not talking about them."

He was so utterly at sea that she had to bite her lip hard to keep from
breaking into ringing laughter.

"Oh, I knew that you'd seen through it, Joe," she cried softly. "You see
what an awful mess I've gotten into?"

He passed a hurried hand across his forehead and then looked at her
searchingly. But he could not penetrate her pretense of concern.

"No matter what I think," said Joe Rix, "you come out with it frankly.
I'll listen."

"As a friend, Joe?"

She managed to throw a plea into her voice that made Joe sigh.

"Sure. You've already said that I'm your friend, and you're right."

"I'm in terrible, terrible trouble! You know how it happened. I was a
fool. I tried to play with Lord Nick. And now he thinks I was in
earnest."

As though the strength of his legs had given way, Joe Rix slipped down
into a chair.

"Go on," he said huskily. "You were playing with Lord Nick?"

"Can't you put yourself in my place, Joe? It's always been taken for
granted that I'm to marry Nick. And the moment he comes around everybody
else avoids me as if I were poison. I was sick of it. And when he showed
up this time it was the same old story. A man would as soon sign his own
death warrant as ask me for a dance. You know how it is?"

He nodded, still at sea, but with a light beginning to dawn in his
little eyes.

"I'm only a girl, Joe. I have all the weakness of other girls. I don't
want to be locked up in a cage just because I--love one man!"

The avowal made Joe blink. It was the second time that day that he had
been placed in an astonishing scene. But some of his old cunning
remained to him.

"Nell," he said suddenly, rising from his chair and going to her. "What
are you trying to do to me? Pull the wool over my eyes?"

It was too much for Nelly Lebrun. She knew that she could not face him
without betraying her guilt and therefore she did not attempt it. She
whirled and flung herself on her bed, face down, and began to sob
violently, suppressing the sounds. And so she waited.

Presently a hand touched her shoulder lightly.

"Go away," cried Nelly in a choked voice. "I hate you, Joe Rix. You're