me he is paying deal of attention to Lucille and
--say, Polly, you don't suppose she'd be silly enough to care for him,
do, you?"

That sensation of a cold wave in the back of her brain came again.

"I'm sure I don't know," she replied, a little coldly. "Why--does it
matter very much to you?"

Harry hesitated, even stammered a little, in denying that it did. He
stammered, as Pauline well understood, because he was not telling her
his true thoughts. It did matter, and she knew it. In reality it
mattered because Harry knew too much about young Madison to want him to
win the affection of any friend of his, but Harry did not wish to
explain.

"So Harry does care for Lucille and always has cared," thought
Pauline. The sense of possession of the youth beside her faded and he
seemed far away. If a man fears he is losing his grip on a girl he
redoubles his attentions and racks his brains to be more interesting
and attractive to her. A girl in the same situation reverses the
tactics.

Just as Harry felt the absolute zero which scientists talk about
settling upon him, he remembered a very important duty.

"Seems to me we don't drift the way we ought to," said Harry, pressing
on his clutch pedal and trying to took concerned.

"I think we have been a long time getting to the aviation field," was
Pauline's chilly answer.

Harry stopped the car, went back and pulled out the little wooden plug
in the gasoline tank. Then away they went again, leaving a little wet
line in the dust of the road. Pauline stared straight ahead. Harry's
attempts at conversation fell on the stony ground of silence, or at
best brought forth only the briefest and most colorless answers. Soon
Harry's practiced ear caught the preliminary warning of waning
gasoline, and a moment later, half way up a gentle hill, with a sob
from all its six cylinders the car gave up the ghost.

A few miles ahead Owen also was in difficulties. He had been sailing
along merrily until he stopped at a little roadhouse for a drink. The
machine had been all right when he got off and he knew nobody had
touched it, yet now it acted as if possessed by the evil one. With
great difficulty he was able to start it, and once started it coughed,
bucked and showed all the symptoms of bronchitis and pneumonia. By
dint of strenuous pedaling Owen helped the asthmatic motor to the top
of the next hill. It ran as smoothly as a watch all the way down the
other side and then im