ing firmly resolved to be unflinchingly
just to a Vincent Farley, one could afford to be humanely interested in
the struggles shoreward or seaward of a poor swimmer in the welter of
the tideway. She did not put it thus baldly, even in her secret thought.
But the thing did itself.

The opportunities for marking the struggles of the poor swimmer were
limited; but where is the woman who can not find the way when desire
drives? Ardea had something more than a speaking acquaintance with Mr.
Frederic Norman who, as acting-manager of the foundry plant in Tom's
absence, had generously thrown one of the buildings open for a series of
Sunday services for the workmen, promoted by Miss Dabney and the
Reverend Francis Morelock. Since the warm nights had come, Norman had
taken a room at the Inn, climbing the mountain from the Paradise side in
time for dinner, and going down in the cool of the morning after an
early breakfast.

Being first and last a man of business, he knew, or seemed to know,
nothing of the valley gossip, or of the social sentence passed on his
chief by the Mountain View Avenue court. When Ardea had assured herself
of this, she utilized Norman freely as a source of information.

"You've known the boss a long time, haven't you, Miss Dabney?" asked the
manager, one evening when Ardea had made room for him in a quiet corner
of the veranda between the Major's chair and her own.

"Mr. Gordon? Oh, yes; a very long time, indeed. We were children
together, you know."

"Well, I'd like to ask you one thing," said Frederic, the unfettered.
"Did you ever get to know him well enough to guess what he'd do next? I
thought I'd been pretty close to him, but once in a while he runs me up
a tree so far that I get dizzy."

"As for example?" prompted Miss Ardea, leaving the personal question in
the air.

"I mean his way of breaking out in a new spot every now and then. Last
winter was one of the times, when he made up his mind between two
minutes to chuck the pipe-making and go back to college. And now he's
got another streak."

Miss Dabney made the necessary show of interest.

"What is it this time--too much business, or not enough?"

Norman rose and went to the edge of the veranda to flick his cigar ash
into the flower border. When he came back he took a chair on that side
of Miss Dabney farthest from the Major, who was dozing peacefully in a
great flat-armed rocker.

"I declare I don't know, Miss Dabney; he's got me gue