s he wanted, and came out."

Bryant was greatly affected by that simple recital. He began to walk
back and forth beside Louise, restlessly thrusting his hands in his
coat pockets but immediately pulling them out as if there were no
satisfaction in the action, and casting troubled glances at her from
under close-drawn brows. His disquietude moved her to speak.

"You're worrying about me, Mr. Bryant; you mustn't do that. In a few
minutes more I'll be entirely recovered. I should be foolish to
pretend that the happening wasn't a shock to me, but I'm not a
weakling--I've health and strength. I'll not permit the thought of the
operation to depress my spirits. Indeed, I know I'll be very proud of
what I did this afternoon, for it was a chance to do a real,
disinterested service. And I can guess what father will say when he
learns of it--'Louise, you did just right. Exactly what you should do
under the circumstances.'"

Already the colour had reappeared in her cheeks. A resilience of
nature was indeed hers, he perceived, that enabled her to undergo
ordeals that would prostrate many women. It came, undoubtedly, from
the same springs out of which rose her splendid courage, her fine
sympathy. Ah, that golden quality of sympathy! Because of it her duty
that day had seemed plain and clear.

"Louise--may I not use that name, for we're friends?--Louise, you're
the bravest, kindest girl I have ever known. I mean it, really. I've
never forgotten your generous act that day when someone so brutally
killed my dog Mike, how you tried to save him. I didn't know you then,
but that made no difference to you. And now when you find an
opportunity to help save a man's life, you never flinch."

"Why, it's the natural thing to do."

"Is it? I was beginning to think selfishness was the natural thing,"
he said, with a hard, twisted smile.

She rested her hand on his sleeve for an instant. A smile and a shake
of her head accompanied the action.

"I know better than that, Lee Bryant," she rejoined. "You're not
selfish yourself and will never arrive at a time when you'll believe
what you said."

"But there are selfish people, many of them."

"Yes. Of course."

"And one can't change them, and they cause infinite anxiety in
others----"

"Yes; that, too. Has Mr. Menocal been troubling you in some new way?"

Lee rose hastily. "I wasn't thinking of him," said he; and he went to
a window and stared out at the engineers' shack across the stre