e to do the next day, or week, or month. Gratitude was not what he
wanted. It was love. That was the way he felt; that was the way he would
always feel. He who loved every hair on Ruth's beautiful head, loved her
wonderful hands, loved her darling feet, loved the very ground on which
she walked "Gratitude!" eh! That was the word his uncle had used the
day he slammed the door of his private office in his face. "Common
gratitude, damn you, Jack, ought to put more sense in your head," as
though one ought to have been "grateful" for a seat at a gambling
table and two rooms in a house supported by its profits. Garry had said
"gratitude," too, and so had Corinne, and all the rest of them. Peter
had never talked gratitude; dear Peter, who had done more for him than
anybody in the world except his own father. Peter wanted his love if he
wanted anything, and that was what he was going to give him--big, broad,
all-absorbing LOVE. And he did love him. Even his wrinkled hands, so
soft and white, and his glistening head, and his dabs of gray whiskers,
and his sweet, firm, human mouth were precious to him. Peter--his
friend, his father, his comrade! Could he ever insult him by such a
mean, cowardly feeling as gratitude? And was the woman he loved as he
loved nothing else in life--was she--was Ruth going to belittle their
relations with the same substitute? It was a big pin, that which Miss
Felicia had impaled him on, and it is no wonder the poor fluttering
wings were nigh exhausted in the struggle!

Relief came at last.

"And now what shall I tell her?" asked Miss Felicia. "She worries more
over you than she does over her father; she can get hold of him any
minute, but you won't be presentable for a week. Come, what shall I tell
her?"

Jack shifted his shoulders so that he could move the easier and with
less pain, and raised himself on his well elbow. There was no use of his
hoping any more; she had evidently sent Miss Felicia to end the matter
with one of her polite phrases,--a weapon which she, of all women, knew
so well how to use.

"Give Miss Ruth my kindest regards," he said in a low voice, still husky
from the effects of the smoke and the strain of the last half-hour--"and
say how thankful I am for her gratitude, and--No,--don't tell her
anything of the kind. I don't know what you are to tell her." The words
seemed to die in his throat.

"But she will ask me, and I have got to say something. Come,--out with
it." Her eyes