istened to Courtlandt without
sound or movement beyond the occasional rasp of feet shifting under the
table. He had begun with the old familiar phrase--"I've got a story."

"Tell it," had been the instant request.

At the beginning the men had been leaning at various negligent
angles,--some with their elbows upon the table, some with their arms
thrown across the backs of their chairs. The partridge had been excellent,
the wine delicious, the tobacco irreproachable. Burma, the tinkle of bells
in the temples, the strange pictures in the bazaars, long journeys over
smooth and stormy seas; romance, moving and colorful, which began at
Rangoon, had zigzagged around the world, and ended in Berlin.

"And so," concluded the teller of the tale, "that is the story. This man
was perfectly innocent of any wrong, a victim of malice on the one hand
and of injustice on the other."

"Is that the end of the yarn?" asked the colonel.

"Who in life knows what the end of anything is? This is not a story out of
a book." Courtlandt accepted a fresh cigar from the box which Rao passed
to him, and dropped his dead weed into the ash-bowl.

"Has he given up?" asked Abbott, his voice strangely unfamiliar in his own
ears.

"A man can struggle just so long against odds, then he wins or becomes
broken. Women are not logical; generally they permit themselves to be
guided by impulse rather than by reason. This man I am telling you about
was proud; perhaps too proud. It is a shameful fact, but he ran away.
True, he wrote letter after letter, but all these were returned unopened.
Then he stopped."

"A woman would a good deal rather believe circumstantial evidence than
not. Humph!" The colonel primed his pipe and relighted it. "She couldn't
have been worth much."

"Worth much!" cried Abbott. "What do you imply by that?"

"No man will really give up a woman who is really worth while, that is, of
course, admitting that your man, Courtlandt, _is_ a man. Perhaps, though,
it was his fault. He was not persistent enough, maybe a bit spineless. The
fact that he gave up so quickly possibly convinced her that her
impressions were correct. Why, I'd have followed her day in and day out,
year after year; never would I have let up until I had proved to her that
she had been wrong."

"The colonel is right," Abbott approved, never taking his eyes off
Courtlandt, who was apparently absorbed in the contemplation of the bread
crumbs under his fingers.

"And m