ghts, and make a show of comprehending and defining
qualities which are neither comprehensible nor definable!)

"Mr. Charlton, I want to speak to you about Katy."

It took Albert a moment or two to collect his thoughts. When he first
perceived Miss Marlay, she seemed part of the landscape. There was about
her form and motion an indefinable gracefulness that was like the charm
of this hazy, undulant, moonlit prairie, and this blue sky seen through
the lace of thin, milk-white clouds. It was not until she spoke Katy's
name that he began to return to himself. Katy was the one jarring string
in the harmony of his hopes.

"About Katy? Certainly, Miss Marlay. Won't you sit down?"

"No, I thank you."

"Mr. Charlton, couldn't you get Katy away while her relations with
Westcott are broken? You don't know how soon she'll slip back into her
old love for him."

"If--" and Albert hesitated. To go, he must leave Miss Minorkey. And the
practical difficulty presented itself to him at the same moment. "If I
could raise money enough to get away, I should go. But Mr. Plausaby has
all of my money and all of Katy's."

Isabel was on the point of complaining that Albert should lend to Mr.
Plausaby, but she disliked to take any liberty, even that of reproof.
Ever since she knew that the family had thought of marrying her to
Albert, she had been an iceberg to him. He should not dare to think
that she had any care for him. For the same reason, another reply died
unuttered on her lips. She was about to offer to lend Mr. Charlton
fifty dollars of her own. But her quick pride kept her back, and,
besides, fifty dollars was not half-enough. She said she thought there
must be some way of raising the money. Then, as if afraid she had been
too cordial and had laid her motives open to suspicion in speaking thus
to Charlton, she drew herself up and bade him good-night with stiff
politeness, leaving him half-fascinated by her presence, half-vexed
with something in her manner, and wholly vexed with himself for having
any feeling one way or the other. What did he care for Isabel Marlay?
What if she were graceful and full of a subtle fascination of presence?
Why should he value such things? What were they worth, after all? What
if she were kind one minute and repellent the next? Isa Marlay was
nothing to him!

Lying in his little unfinished chamber, he dismissed intellectual Miss
Minorkey from his mind with regret; he dismissed graceful but practical