ves. "You shouldn't be so
foolish. I couldn't take it. I have too many things as it is, and
besides--" She was thinking of what she would say if Cowperwood chanced
to ask her where she got it. He was so intuitive.

"And besides?" he queried.

"Nothing," she replied, "except that I mustn't take it, really." "Won't
you take it as a souvenir even if--our agreement, you know."

"Even if what?" she queried.

"Even if nothing else comes of it. A memento, then--truly--you know."

He laid hold of her fingers with his cool, vigorous ones. A year
before, even six months, Aileen would have released her hand smilingly.
Now she hesitated. Why should she be so squeamish with other men when
Cowperwood was so unkind to her?

"Tell me something," Lynde asked, noting the doubt and holding her
fingers gently but firmly, "do you care for me at all?"

"I like you, yes. I can't say that it is anything more than that."

She flushed, though, in spite of herself.

He merely gazed at her with his hard, burning eyes. The materiality
that accompanies romance in so many temperaments awakened in her, and
quite put Cowperwood out of her mind for the moment. It was an
astonishing and revolutionary experience for her. She quite burned in
reply, and Lynde smiled sweetly, encouragingly.

"Why won't you be friends with me, my sweetheart? I know you're not
happy--I can see that. Neither am I. I have a wreckless, wretched
disposition that gets me into all sorts of hell. I need some one to
care for me. Why won't you? You're just my sort. I feel it. Do you
love him so much"--he was referring to Cowperwood--"that you can't love
any one else?"

"Oh, him!" retorted Aileen, irritably, almost disloyally. "He doesn't
care for me any more. He wouldn't mind. It isn't him."

"Well, then, what is it? Why won't you? Am I not interesting enough?
Don't you like me? Don't you feel that I'm really suited to you?" His
hand sought hers softly.

Aileen accepted the caress.

"Oh, it isn't that," she replied, feelingly, running back in her mind
over her long career with Cowperwood, his former love, his keen
protestations. She had expected to make so much out of her life with
him, and here she was sitting in a public restaurant flirting with and
extracting sympathy from a comparative stranger. It cut her to the
quick for the moment and sealed her lips. Hot, unbidden tears welled
to her eyes.

Lynde saw them. He was really very sorry for h