e defense of imperilled
freedom--had forgotten it as completely as the now ecstatic Hugo had
forgotten his prejudices against the "low, smelly working people." He
looked as exalted as he felt. "I only did my plain duty," replied he.
"How could any decent American have done less?"

"I haven't seen Victor since yesterday afternoon," pursued Selma. "But
I know how grateful he'll be--not so much for what you did as that YOU
did it."

The instinct of the crowd--the universal human instinct--against
intruding upon a young man and young woman talking together soon
cleared them of neighbors. An awkward silence fell. Said he
hesitatingly:

"Are you ready to give your answer?--to that question I asked you the
other day."

"I gave you my answer then," replied she, her glance seeking a way of
escape.

"No," said he. "For you said then that you would not marry me. And I
shall never take no for an answer until you have married some one else."

She looked up at him with eyes large and grave and puzzled. "I'm sure
you don't want to marry me," she said. "I wonder why you keep asking
me."

"I have to be honest with you," said Davy. "Somehow you bring out all
the good there is in me. So, I can't conceal anything from you. In a
way I don't want to marry you. You're not at all the woman I have
always pictured as the sort I ought to marry and would marry.
But--Selma, I love you. I'd give up anything--even my career--to get
you. When I'm away from you I seem to regain control of myself. But
just as soon as I see you, I'm as bad as ever again."

"Then we mustn't see each other," said she.

Suddenly she nodded, laughed up at him and darted away--and Hugo
Galland, long since abandoned by the crowd, had seized him by the arm.

Selma debated whether to take Victor the news or to continue her walk.
She decided for the walk. She had been feeling peculiarly toward
Victor since the previous afternoon. She had not gone back in the
evening, but had sent an excuse by one of the Leaguers. It was plain
to her that Jane Hastings was up to mischief, and she had begun to
fear--sacrilegious though she felt it to be to harbor such a
suspicion--that there was man enough, weak, vain, susceptible man
enough, in Victor Dorn to make Jane a danger. The more she had thought
about Jane and her environment, the clearer it had become that there
could be no permanent and deep sincerity in Jane's aspirations after
emancipation from her clas