d. She was not without a sense of humor and the incongruity
of the situation was at once apparent to her. Really he went too far. He
was making her a serious proposal of marriage. This sailor, fireman,
stoker, or whatever he might be, was actually asking the heiress to
millions, one of the prizes of New York's matrimonial market--to be his
wife! It was too absurd. Only the grave, pleading expression in
Armitage's face deterred her from laughing outright. If any of her set
in New York heard of it, they would chaff her without mercy.

"How handsome he is!" she murmured to herself as she looked at him.
"What a pity we are not social equals!"

She was sorry for him, of course, but it would be kinder if she put him
at once in his place and made him understand the hopelessness of his
position.

"Do you hear?" he said hoarsely, his voice quivering from suppressed
emotion. "I want you--I want you to be my wife!"

Grace drew herself up with the air of offended dignity of a queen hurt
in her pride. Her gown was in tatters, her lovely hair hung loose over
her snow-white shoulders. With her cheeks slightly flushed and her large
dark eyes dilated and more lustrous from excitement, never had she
appeared to him more beautiful or desirable. Like a trembling felon at
the dock waiting to hear the judge pronounce his fate, Armitage waited
for her answer.

"Your wife?" she replied not unkindly. "Do you know what I am, do you
realize what position I hold in society? Don't you know that my father
is one of America's kings of finance, that his fortune is twenty
millions, and that our winter and summer homes are among the
show-places of Fifth Avenue and Newport? Don't you know that I spend
$10,000 a year on my dress, that I have a dozen servants to run at my
call, that my carriages, my horses, gowns and jewels furnish endless
material for the society reporters of the yellow journals? Men have
proposed to me--men of means, men of my own class. I refused them all
because they hadn't money enough." With a scornful toss of her head, she
added: "I despise a husband who looks to his wife for support."

Armitage had listened patiently until now, but her last words aroused
him. Suddenly interrupting her, he broke in:

"You refused them not because they weren't rich enough, but because you
didn't love them. You can't deceive me. I haven't watched and studied
you all these weeks for nothing. You aren't as shallow and heartless as
you pretend. Y