get
his money?"

"Why, don't you know?" was the innocent query. And then, with a pretty
affectation of embarrassment, real or perfectly simulated: "If he hasn't
told you, I mustn't."

"Of course, I don't want to pry," said Raymer, loyal again.

"I can give you a hint, and that is all. Don't you remember 'My Lady
Jezebel,' the unsigned novel that made such a hit last summer?"

"Why, bless goodness, yes! Did he write that?"

"He has never admitted it in so many words. But I'll divide a little
secret with you. He has been reading bits of his new book to me, and
pshaw! a blind person could tell! I asked him once if he could guess
how much the author of 'My Lady Jezebel' had been paid, and he said,
with the most perfectly transparent carelessness: 'Oh, about a hundred
thousand, I suppose.'"

"Tally!" said Raymer, laughing. "Griswold has put an even ninety
thousand into my little egg-basket out at the plant. But, of course you
knew that, everybody in Wahaska knows it by this time."

"Yes; I knew it."

"I'm glad it's book money," Raymer went on. "If we should happen to go
smash, he won't feel the loss quite so fiercely. I have a friend over in
Wisconsin; he is a laboratory professor in mechanics, and he writes
books on the side. He says a book is a pure gamble. If you win, you have
that much more money to throw to the dicky-birds. If you lose, you've
merely drawn the usual blank."

Miss Grierson did not reply, and for a little while they were both
silent. Then Raymer said:

"I wonder if McMurtry doesn't think I've dropped out on him. I guess I'd
better go and see. Don't wait any longer on my motions, unless you want
to, Miss Margery."

When Raymer had gone, the opportunity which Broffin had so lately craved
was his. Miss Grierson was left alone on the big veranda, and he had
only to step out and confront her. Instead, he got up quietly and went
back through the lobby with his head down and his hands in his pockets,
and the surviving bit of the dead cigar disappeared between his strong
teeth and became a cud of chagrin. There had been a goal in sight, but
Miss Grierson had beat him to it.

And the winner of the small handicap? For the time it took Raymer to
disappear she sat perfectly still, in the attitude of one who stifles
all the other senses that the listening ear may hear and strike the note
of warning or of relief. A group of young people, returning from a
steam-launch circuit of the upper lake, came up t