for him to assure Griswold that such a visit would
be entirely welcome and that they might count on finding him at home.
As though it were an afterthought, Griswold halted at the door and said:

"I believe you are already acquainted with Miss Proctor."

Cochran, conscious of five years of devotion, found that he was
blushing, and longed to strangle himself. Nor was the blush lost upon
Griswold.

"I'm sorry," said Cochran, "but I've not had that honor. On the stage,
of course--"

He shrugged the broad shoulders deprecatingly, as though to suggest
that not to know Miss Proctor as an artist argues oneself unknown.

Griswold pretended to be puzzled. As though endeavoring to recall a
past conversation he frowned.

"But Aline," he said, "told me she had met you-met you at Bar Harbor."
In the fatal photographs the familiar landfalls of Bar Harbor had been
easily recognized.

The young architect shook his head.

"It must be another Cochran," he suggested. "I have never been in Bar
Harbor."

With the evidence of the photographs before him this last statement was
a verdict of guilty, and Griswold, not with the idea of giving Cochran
a last chance to be honest, but to cause him to dig the pit still
deeper, continued to lead him on. "Maybe she meant York Harbor?"

Again Cochran shook his head and laughed.

"Believe me," he said, "if I'd ever met Miss Proctor anywhere I
wouldn't forget it!"

Ten minutes later Griswold was talking to Aline over the telephone. He
intended to force matters. He would show Aline she could neither
trifle with nor deceive Chester Griswold; but the thought that he had
been deceived was not what most hurt him. What hurt him was to think
that Aline had preferred a man who looked like an advertisement for
ready-made clothes and who worked in his shirt-sleeves.

Griswold took it for granted that any woman would be glad to marry him.
So many had been willing to do so that he was convinced, when one of
them was not, it was not because there was anything wrong with him, but
because the girl herself lacked taste and perception.

That the others had been in any degree moved by his many millions had
never suggested itself. He was convinced each had loved him for
himself alone; and if Aline, after meeting him, would still consider
any one else, it was evident something was very wrong with Aline. He
was determined that she must be chastened--must be brought to a proper
appreciation of her goo