hinted that you
had all the masculine attention you cared for; then Tilly Nepple
visited town again last week and she had been sick and called Dr. Gray.
She asked him about you, and he told what I fine time you had at
Chautauqua and Chicago, with the rich new friends you'd made. I was
watching for you about this time, and I just happened to be at the
station in Hartley last Saturday when you got off the train with your
fine gentleman, so I stayed over with some friends of mine, and I saw
you several times Sunday. I saw that I'd practically no chance with
you at all; but I made up my mind I'd stick until I saw you marry him,
so I wrote just as I would if I hadn't known there was another man in
existence."

"That was a very fine letter," said Kate.

"It is a very fine, deep, sincere love that I am offering you," said
George Holt. "Of course I could see prosperity sticking out all over
that city chap, but it didn't bother me much, because I knew that you,
of all women, would judge a man on his worth. A rising young
professional man is not to be sneered at, at least until he makes his
start and proves what he can do. I couldn't get an early start,
because I've always had to work, just as you've seen me last summer and
this, so I couldn't educate myself so fast, but I've gone as fast and
far as I could."

Kate winced. This was getting on places that hurt and to matters she
well understood, but she was the soul of candour. "You did very well
to educate yourself as you have, with no help at all," she said.

"I've done my best in the past, I'm going to do marvels in the future,
and whatever I do, it is all for you and yours for the taking," he said
grandiosely.

"Thank you," said Kate. "But are you making that offer when you can't
help seeing that I'm in deep trouble?"

"A thousand times over," he said. "All I want to know about your
trouble is whether there is anything a man of my size and strength can
do to help you."

"Not a thing," said Kate, "in the direction of slaying a gay deceiver,
if that's what you mean. The extent of my familiarities with John
Jardine consists in voluntarily kissing him twice last Sunday night for
the first and last time, once for himself, and once for his mother,
whom I have since ceased to respect."

George Holt was watching her with eyes lynx-sharp, but Kate never saw
it. When she mentioned her farewell of Sunday night, a queer smile
swept over his face and instantly disappe