man
who marries you will have his work cut out for him if he proposes to fill
the requirements."

"Won't he?" said Penelope. "I can fancy him sitting up nights to figure it
all out."

They had reached the Tejon Avenue apartment house, and to Elinor's "Won't
you come in?" Ormsby said: "It's pretty late, but I'll smoke a cigar on
the porch, if you'll let me."

Penelope took the hammock, but she kept it only during the first inch of
Ormsby's cigar. After her sister had gone in, Elinor went back to the
lapsed topic.

"I am rather concerned about Mr. Kent. You described him exactly;
and--well, he is past the planning part and into the fighting part. Do you
think he will take ordinary precautions?"

"I hope so, I'm sure," rejoined the amateur chairman. "As his business
manager I am responsible for him, after a fashion. I was glad to see
Loring to-night--glad he has come back. Kent defers to him more than he
does to any one else; and Loring is a solid, sober-minded sort."

"Yes," she agreed; "I was glad, too."

After that the talk languished, and the silence was broken only by the
distant droning of an electric car, the fizz and click of the arc light
over the roadway, and the occasional _dap_ of one the great beetles
darting hither and thither in the glare.

Ormsby was wondering if the time was come for the successful exploiting of
an idea which had been growing on him steadily for weeks, not to say
months.

It was becoming more and more evident to him that he was not advancing in
the sentimental siege beyond the first parallel thrown up so skilfully on
the last night of the westward journey. It was not that Elinor was lacking
in loyalty or in acquiescence; she scrupulously gave him both as an
accepted suitor. But though he could not put his finger upon the precise
thing said or done which marked the loosening of his hold, he knew he was
receding rather than advancing.

Now to a man of expedients the interposition of an obstacle suggests only
ways and means for overcoming it. Ormsby had certain clear-cut convictions
touching the subjugation of women, and as his stout heart gave him
resolution he lived up to them. When he spoke again it was of the matter
which concerned him most deeply; and his plea was a gentle repetition of
many others in the same strain.

"Elinor, I have waited patiently for a long time, and I'll go on doing it,
if that is what will come the nearest to pleasing you. But it would be a
prodigio