orldly
interests, they sometimes feel as though they might help each other
without committing an unpardonable affront. That's all. Have you many
more rights of way to secure before the road can go ahead?"

"I should like to think, Miss Jane," he replied, passing the matter of
railroads, "that I really could turn to you for help sometimes. If
there's a fellow in all the world who needs it, and who abominably hates
to let people see he needs it, it's the luckless devil before you."

"If the world is to be kept in ignorance," she smiled, "you mustn't come
into dark places and begin swearing unless you know they're uninhabited.
It's romantic, but dangerous."

"Romantic things are always dangerous; ever think of that?"

"I haven't, but it isn't true," she answered.

"I can prove it without any trouble, but--" he arose, feeling his
pockets, "my--er--cigarettes! Will you wait a few minutes?"

She bowed, and he went out; not for the cigarettes, but to a side window
of the house where he beckoned Zack and told him to build, without
delay, a toddy. For Brent had been considerably unstrung by the
suddenness with which events moved across his stage since sunset, and he
turned to this concoction for temporary steadiness. Then he lighted a
cigarette and walked back to her in a more composed frame of mind.

"Now," he said, entering the cedars, "with your permission, why are
romantic things dangerous?"

"That happened to be your observation, and not interesting," she
answered. "You found your cigarettes?"

"You see I'm smoking," he smiled.

"And temporizing," she drily observed. "Really, Mr. McElroy, the truth
is not in you!"

"I beg your pardon?" he stiffened slightly.

"I am saying the truth is not in you," she directly answered. "When you
first came here tonight, you took a cigarette from your case and lighted
it."

"I should never have been so careless if something weren't on my mind,"
he laughed now. "The truth--the true truth--is that I needed a drink of
wicked whiskey. Forgive me?"

"I might not find it so difficult to forgive if, in the future, you
either stop trying to deceive me or talking to me; I really don't care
which!"

"I say!" he looked up in surprise. "That's pretty straight talk! But it
may be a worth-while thing for you to remember that a place does exist
where men can't answer every question put to them, and I very much doubt
your right to assume so much simply because I choose to keep a few of m