sent her, wrapping it
about her like a shawl, in which quaint garb she went out in more
confidence, and walked down the hall to the stairway. Half-way down
she met Colonel Fiske just coming up to dress. Seeing one of his young
guests arrayed for the evening he made her his compliments, the first
words rather absent and perfunctory. But when he was aware which guest
she was, he warmed into a pressing and personal note, as his practised
eyes took in the beauty, tonight startlingly enhanced by excitement,
of the girl's dark, shining eyes, flushed cheeks, and white neck and
arms. He ended by lifting her hand, in his florid way, and pressing
it to his white mustache for a very fervent kiss. Sylvia blushed
prettily, meeting his hot old eyes with a dewy unconsciousness,
and smiling frankly up into the deeply lined carnal face with the
simple-hearted pleasure she would have felt at the kind word of any
elderly man. The Colonel seemed quite old to her--much older than her
father--like Professor Kennedy.

"Jerry's in the library, waiting," his father announced with a sly
laugh. "I wondered at the young rascal's being dressed so far ahead of
time." He turned reluctantly and went on up the stairs, leaving Sylvia
to go forward to her first meeting alone with the man she had promised
to marry. As she descended the long flight of stairs, her scarf,
loosened by her movement, slipped unobserved in her excitement and
hung lightly about her shoulders.

The door to the library was shut. She opened it with a rapidly beating
heart and stood on the threshold, shyly hesitating to advance further,
looking with agitation at the stalwart, handsome, well-groomed figure
which stood in an attitude of impatient expectation by the window.
Except for the light which came in from the electric bulb on the porch
outside, the big room was in twilight. In the brilliantly lighted
door-opening, she stood revealed as by a searchlight.

At the sound of the opening door, and his name spoken in a quavering
voice, the young man turned, paused an instant as if blinded by the
vision, and sprang forward. The door behind Sylvia swung shut, and her
eyes, widening in the dusk, saw only the headlong, overwhelming rush
upon her of her lover. She was enfolded strongly in muscular arms,
she was pressed closer and yet closer to a powerful body, whose heat
burned through the thin broadcloth, she was breathless, stunned,
choked. As the man bent forward over her, clasping h