ndering Wilmot is
to-night?"

"I drink to him," said the beggar quickly, "wherever he is, and wish
him luck."

But the poison had been spilled on Barbara's evening. For three hours
she had not once thought of the man whom twelve hours ago she had really
wanted to marry. And her heart meanwhile had warmed and expanded toward
one who at best was a prodigiously successful crook and rascal, and she
was ashamed. But for all that neither the warmth nor the triumphant
sense of influence and conquest went out of her heart. And later, when
Mrs. Bruce said: "I really think we ought to go," Barbara, outwardly all
sweetness and agreement, was inwardly annoyed. She wanted very much to
stay, for she knew that the moment she was alone her conscience would
give her no peace, and that she would make resolutions which she would
not, judging from past experiences, be able to keep. She would resolve
to abandon her bust of Blizzard, resolve never to see the creature
again, since it seemed that he had in him power upon her
emotions--dangerous power.

"Do we work to-morrow, Miss Ferris?"

The words, "No, I'm afraid not to-morrow," rose to her lips. The words,
"_Please,_ at the usual time," came out.

And she felt as if his will, not her own, had caused her to say those
words. Her heart gave a sudden leap of fear.

XXVI

Barbara knew very well that she was doing wrong. Summer had descended,
blazing, upon the city. Without exception her friends had gone to the
country. Her father had gone to Colorado upon an errand of which for the
present he chose to make a mystery. She made a habit of lunching at the
Colony Club, and occasionally saw some friend or other who had run into
town for a face massage, a hair wave, a gown, or a hat. But the
afternoons and evenings hung very heavily upon her hands. So that she
got to living in and for her mornings at the studio. With the appearance
of Blizzard, clean, thoughtful, and forceful, her feelings of loneliness
and depression vanished. If her vitality was at low ebb, his was not.
The heat appeared to brace him, and he had the faculty of communicating
something of his own energy, so that it was not until she had finished
working and dismissed him that she was sensible of fatigue and
discouragement.

The man was on his best behavior. He could not but realize that he had
established an influence over her; that she was beginning to take him at
his own estimate of himself, and to believe in his