woman to the wall. I'm here this morning to save you some of them; to
take the man's part in your outsetting, or as much of it as I can. When
are you going to give me the right to come between you and all the little
worries, Elinor?"

She turned from him with a faint gesture of cold impatience.

"You are forgetting your promise," she said quite dispassionately. "We
were to be friends; as good friends as we were before that evening at Bar
Harbor. I told you it would be impossible, and you said you were strong
enough to make it possible."

He looked at her with narrowing eyes.

"It is possible, in a way. But I'd like to know what door of your heart it
is that I haven't been able to open."

She ignored the pleading and took refuge in a woman's expedient.

"If you insist on going back to the beginnings, I shall go back, also--to
Abigail and the trunk-packing."

He planted himself squarely before her, the mask lifted and the masterful
soul asserting itself boldly.

"It wouldn't do any good, you know. I am going with you."

"To Abigail and the trunk-room?"

"Oh, no; to the jumping-off place out West--wherever it is you are going
to hibernate."

"No," she said decisively; "you must not."

"Why?"

"My saying so ought to be sufficient reason."

"It isn't," he contended, frowning down on her good-naturedly. "Shall I
tell you why you don't want me to go? It is because you are afraid."

"I am not," she denied.

"Yes, you are. You know in your own heart there is no reason why you
should continue to make me unhappy, and you are afraid I might
over-persuade you."

Her eyes--they were the serene eyes of cool gray that take on slate-blue
tints in stressful moments--met his defiantly.

"If you think that, I withdraw my objection," she said coldly. "Mother and
Penelope will be delighted, I am sure."

"And you will be bored, world without end," he laughed. "Never mind; I'll
be decent about it and keep out of your way as much as you like."

Again she made the little gesture of petulant impatience.

"You are continually placing me in a false position. Can't you leave me
out of it entirely?"

It is one of the prime requisites of successful mastership to know when to
press the point home, and when to recede gracefully. Ormsby abruptly shut
the door upon sentiment and came down to things practical.

"It is your every-day comfort that concerns me chiefly. I am going to take
all three of you in charge, giving the dep