time," said Selma. "But I'd rather come and take you
for a walk. I have to walk two hours every day. It's the only thing
that'll keep my head clear."

"When will you come?--to-morrow?"

"Is nine o'clock too early?"

Jane reflected that her father left for business at half-past eight.
"Nine to-morrow," she said. "Good-by again."

As she was mounting her horse, she saw "the Cossack girl," as she was
calling her, writing away at the window hardly three feet above the
level of Jane's head when she was mounted, so low was the first story
of the battered old frame house. But Selma did not see her; she was
all intent upon the writing. "She's forgotten me already," thought
Jane with a pang of jealous vanity. She added: "But SHE has SOMETHING
to think about--she and Victor Dorn."

She was so preoccupied that she rode away with only an absent thank you
for the small boy, in an older and much larger and wider brother's
cast-off shirt, suspenders and trousers. At the corner of the avenue
she remembered and turned her horse. There stood the boy gazing after
her with a hypnotic intensity that made her smile. She rode back
fumbling in her pockets. "I beg your pardon," said she to the boy.
Then she called up to Selma Gordon:

"Miss Gordon--please--will you lend me a quarter until to-morrow?"

Selma looked up, stared dazedly at her, smiled absently at Miss
Hastings--and Miss Hastings had the strongest confirmation of her
suspicion that Selma had forgotten her and her visit the instant she
vanished from the threshold of the office. Said Selma: "A
quarter?--oh, yes--certainly." She seemed to be searching a drawer or
a purse out of sight. "I haven't anything but a five dollar bill. I'm
so sorry"--this in an absent manner, with most of her thoughts
evidently still upon her work. She rose, leaned from the window,
glanced up the street, then down. She went on:

"There comes Victor Dorn. He'll lend it to you."

Along the ragged brick walk at a quick pace the man who had in such
abrupt fashion stormed Jane Hasting's fancy and taken possession of her
curiosity was advancing with a basket on his arm. He was indeed a man
of small stature--about the medium height for a woman--about the height
of Jane Hastings. But his figure was so well put together and his walk
so easy and free from self-consciousness that the question of stature
no sooner arose than it was dismissed. His head commanded all the
attention--its poi