directly ahead. The rest were in the cockpit "cutting
up"--laughing and singing. It was very plain to all that Stephanie was
becoming interested in Forbes Gurney; and since he was charming and she
wilful, nothing was done to interfere with them, except to throw an
occasional jest their way. Gurney, new to love and romance, scarcely
knew how to take his good fortune, how to begin. He told Stephanie of
his home life in the wheat-fields of the Northwest, how his family had
moved from Ohio when he was three, and how difficult were the labors he
had always undergone. He had stopped in his plowing many a day to stand
under a tree and write a poem--such as it was--or to watch the birds or
to wish he could go to college or to Chicago. She looked at him with
dreamy eyes, her dark skin turned a copper bronze in the moonlight, her
black hair irradiated with a strange, luminous grayish blue. Forbes
Gurney, alive to beauty in all its forms, ventured finally to touch her
hand--she of Knowles, Cross, and Cowperwood--and she thrilled from head
to toe. This boy was so sweet. His curly brown hair gave him a kind
of Greek innocence and aspect. She did not move, but waited, hoping he
would do more.

"I wish I might talk to you as I feel," he finally said, hoarsely, a
catch in his throat.

She laid one hand on his.

"You dear!" she said.

He realized now that he might. A great ecstasy fell upon him. He
smoothed her hand, then slipped his arm about her waist, then ventured
to kiss the dark cheek turned dreamily from him. Artfully her head
sunk to his shoulder, and he murmured wild nothings--how divine she
was, how artistic, how wonderful! With her view of things, it could
only end one way. She manoeuvered him into calling on her at her home,
into studying her books and plays on the top-floor sitting-room, into
hearing her sing. Once fully in his arms, the rest was easy by
suggestion. He learned she was no longer innocent, and then-- In the
mean time Cowperwood mingled his speculations concerning large
power-houses, immense reciprocating engines, the problem of a wage
scale for his now two thousand employees, some of whom were threatening
to strike, the problem of securing, bonding, and equipping the La Salle
Street tunnel and a down-town loop in La Salle, Munroe, Dearborn, and
Randolph streets, with mental inquiries and pictures as to what
possibly Stephanie Platow might be doing. He could only make
appointments with her