oubles to some good
woman--not but that you know mine already. You're as shrewd as you are
kind."

I sat down on the edge of a chair. For all I had had so much to do with
the sanatorium, I never forgot that I was only the spring-house girl. He
threw himself back in his easy chair, with the candle behind him on the
table and his arms above his head.

"It's like this, Minnie," he said. "Mr. Jennings likes the new order of
things and--he's going to stay."

I nodded.

"And I like it here. I want to stay. It's the one thing I've found that
I think I can do. It isn't what I've dreamed of, but it's worth while.
To anchor the derelicts of humanity in a sort of repair dock here, and
scrape the barnacles off their dispositions, and send them out shipshape
again, surely that's something. And I can do it."

I nodded again.

"But if the Jenningses stay--" he looked at me. "Minnie, in heaven's
name, what am I going to do if SHE stays?"

"I don't know, Mr. Pierce," I said. "I couldn't sleep last night for
thinking about it."

He smoothed out the paper and looked at it again, but I think he
scarcely saw it.

"The situation is humorous," he said, "only my sense of humor seems
to have died. She doesn't know I exist, except to invent new and
troublesome regulations for her annoyance. She is very sweet when she
meets me, but only because I am helping her to have her own way. And
I--my God, Minnie, I sit in the office and listen for her step outside!"

He moved a little and held out the paper in the candle-light.

"'It will please Americans to know,'" he read, "'that with the exception
of the Venetian lace robe sent by the bridegroom's mother, all of Miss
Patricia Jennings' elaborate trousseau is being made in America.

"'Prince Oskar and his suite, according to present arrangements, will
sail from Naples early in March, and the wedding date, although not yet
definitely fixed, will probably be the first week in April. The wedding
party will include--'"

He stopped there, and looked at me, trying to smile.

"I knew it all before," he said, "but there's something inevitable about
print. I guess I hadn't realized it."

He had the same look of wretchedness he'd had the first night I saw
him--a hungry look--and I couldn't help it; I went over to him and
patted him on the head like a little boy. I was only the spring-house
girl, but I was older than he was, and he needed somebody to comfort
him.

"I can't think of anything t