this? Will you promise me that while you are away you won't
have other fellows calling on you or--or anything like that? And I'll
promise you that I'll have nothing to say to another girl--in any way
that counts, I mean. Shall we promise each other that, Helen? Come!"

She paused for some moment before answering, but her reply, when it
came, was firm.

"No," she said, "I don't think we should promise anything, except to
remain friends. You might promise and then be sorry, later."

"_I_ might? How about you?"

"Perhaps we both might. So we won't take the risk. You may come and see
me to-morrow evening and say good-by, if you like. But you mustn't stay
long. It is my last night with father for some time and I mustn't cheat
him out of it. Good night, Albert. I'm so glad our misunderstanding is
over, aren't you?"

"Of course I am. But, Helen--"

"I must go in now. Good night."

The reflections of Alberto Speranza during his walk back to the Snow
place were varied but wonderful. He thought of Raymond's humiliation
and gloried in it. He thought of Helen and rhapsodized. And if,
occasionally, he thought also of the dance and of Madeline Fosdick,
forgive him. He was barely twenty-one and the moon was shining.

CHAPTER IX

The good-by call the following evening was, to him at least, not very
satisfactory. Helen was tired, having been busy all day with the final
preparations for leaving, and old Mr. Kendall insisted on being present
during the entire visit and in telling long and involved stories of the
trip abroad he had made when a young man and the unfavorable opinion
which he had then formed of Prussians as traveling companions. Albert's
opinion of Prussians was at least as unfavorable as his own, but his
complete and even eager agreement with each of the old gentleman's
statements did not have the effect of choking the latter off, but rather
seemed to act as encouragement for more. When ten o'clock came and it
was time to go Albert felt as if he had been listening to a lecture on
the Hohenzollerns. "Great Scott, Helen," he whispered, as she came to
the door with him, "I don't feel as if I had talked with you a minute.
Why, I scarcely--"

But just here Mr. Kendall came hurrying from the sitting-room to tell
of one incident which he had hitherto forgotten, and so even this brief
interval of privacy was denied. But Albert made one more attempt.

"I'm going to run over to the station to-morrow morning to see