e effort to keep it steady
and casual. "Is everything going all right?"

"Fine."

"Is--is the money end of it all right?"

"Yes, that is, I am not worrying about money."

"You're not making money?"

"No."

"You are not losing any?"

"I am--a little. That was to be expected, don't you think so?"

"How much are you losing?"

"I don't know exactly."

"You ought to know. Are you keeping your own books?"

"Betty helps me."

"Are you losing a hundred a month?"

"Yes."

"Five hundred?"

"I suppose so."

"A thousand?"

"I don't really know."

"A thousand?" he insisted.

"Yes," Nancy answered recklessly, "the way I run it."

"It doesn't make any difference, of course;" Dick said, "you've got
all my money behind you."

"I haven't anybody's money behind me except my own."

"You had fifteen thousand dollars. Do you mean to say that you have
any of that left to draw on?"

"No, I don't."

"Do you mind telling me how you are managing?"

"Billy borrowed some money for me."

"On what security?"

"I don't know."

"Why didn't he come to me?"

"I told him not to."

"Nancy, do you realize that you're the most exasperating woman that
ever walked the face of this earth?" the unhappy lover asked.

Nancy managed to convey the fact that Dick's asseveration both
surprised and pained her, without resorting to the use of words.

"I wish you wouldn't spoil this lovely party," she said to him a few
seconds later. "I'm extremely tired, and I should like to get my mind
off my business instead of going over these tiresome details with
anybody."

"You look very innocent and kind and loving," Dick said desperately,
"but at heart you're a little fraud, Nancy."

She interrupted him to point out two children laden with wild flowers,
trudging along the roadside.

"See how adorably dirty and happy they are," she cried. "That little
fellow has his shoestrings untied, and keeps tripping on them, he's so
tired, but he's so crazy about the posies that he doesn't care. I
wonder if he's taking them home to his mother."

"You're devoted to children, Nancy, aren't you?" Dick's voice
softened.

"Yes, I am, and some day I'm going to adopt a whole orphan asylum,"--her
voice altered in a way that Dick did not in the least understand. "I
could if I wanted to," she laughed. "Maybe I will want to some day. So
many of my ideas are being changed and modified by experience."

The road-house of his choice, when they reached