danger is to tackle it yourself, isn't
it? Oh, don't blush,--I like you all the better for your little trick."

CHAPTER V

A MINISTER'S SON

"Centerville, Iowa.

"Dear Carol and David:

"I am getting very, exceptionally wise. I am really appalled at
myself. It seems so unnecessary in one so young. You will remember,
Carol, that I used to say it was unfair that ministers' children should
be denied so much of the worldly experience that other ordinary humans
fall heir to by the natural sequence of things. I resented the
deprivation. I coveted one taste of every species of sweet, satanic or
otherwise.

"I have changed my mind. I have been convinced that ordinaries may
dabble in forbidden fires, and a little cold ointment will banish every
trace of the flame, but ministers' children stay scarred and charred
forever. I have decided to keep far from the worldly blazes and let
others supply the fanning breezes. For you know, Carol, that the
wickedest fires in the world would die out if there were not some
willing hands to fan them.

"There is the effect. The cause--Kirke Connor.

"Carol, has David ever explained to you what fatal fascination a
semi-satanic man has for nice, white women? I have been at father many
times on the subject, and he says, 'Connie, be reasonable, what do I
know about semi-satanics?' Then he goes down-town. See if you can get
anything out of David on the subject and let me know.

"Kirke is a semi-satanic. Also a minister's son. He has been in
trouble of one kind or another ever since I first met him, when he was
fourteen years old. He fairly seethed his way through college. Mr.
Connor has resigned from the active ministry now and lives in Mount
Mark, and Kirke bought a partnership in Mr. Ives' furniture store and
goes his troubled, riotous way as heretofore. That is, he did until
recently.

"A few weeks ago I missed my railway connections and had to lay over
for three hours in Fairfield. I checked my suit-case and started out
to look up some of my friends. As I went out one door, I glimpsed the
vanishing point of a man's coat exiting in the opposite direction. I
started to cut across the corner, but a backward glance revealed a
man's hat and one eye peering around the corner of the station. Was I
being detected? I stopped in my tracks, my literary instinct on the
alert. The hat slowly pivoted a head into view. It was Kirke Connor.
He shuffled toward me, glanc