but Dunbar had advised that she be
kept on for a time at least. Mentally Graham figured that the first of
January would see her gone, and the thought of a Christmas present for
her was partly compounded of remorse.

He had been buying a cigaret case for Marion when the thought came to
him. He had not bought a Christmas present for a girl, except flowers,
since the first year he was at college. He had sent Delight one that
year, a half-dozen little leather-bound books of poetry. What a precious
young prig he must have been! He knew now that girls only pretended to
care for books. They wanted jewelry, and they got past the family with
it by pretending it was not real, or that they had bought it out of
their allowances. One of Toots' friends was taking a set of silver fox
from a man, and she was as straight as a die. Oh, he knew girls, now.

The next day he asked Anna Klein: "What would you like for Christmas?"

Anna, however, had insisted that she did not want a Christmas present.

Later on, however, she had seen a watch one of the girls on the hill
had bought for twelve dollars, and on his further insistence a day or so
later she had said:

"Do you really want to know?"

"Of course I do."

"You oughtn't to spend money on me, you know."

"You let me attend to that. Now, out with it!"

So she told him rather nervously, for she felt that twelve dollars was a
considerable sum. He had laughed, and agreed instantly, but when he went
to buy it he found himself paying a price that rather startled him.

"Don't you lose it, young lady!" he admonished her when, the day before
Christmas, he fastened it on her wrist. Then he had stooped down to kiss
her, and the intensity of feeling in her face had startled him. "It's
a good watch," he had said, rather uneasily; "no excuse for your being
late now!"

All the rest of the day she was radiant.

He meant well enough even then. He had never pretended to love her. He
accepted her adoration, petted and teased her in return, worked off his
occasional ill humors on her, was indeed conscious sometimes that he was
behaving extremely well in keeping things as they were.

But by the middle of January he began to grow uneasy. The atmosphere at
Marion's was bad; there was a knowledge of life plus an easy toleration
of certain human frailties that was as insidious as a slow fever. The
motto of live and let live prevailed. And Marion refused to run away
with him and marry him, or to let