e he knows how it happened."

"Are you able to marry, Tom? Is there any reason why you shouldn't?"

"No, there isn't." His head went up. "I can't give her what her
mother can, but I can take care of her all right. On the first of
next May father makes me general manager of the business. He hasn't
spared me because I was his son, and he wouldn't give me the place
until I'd earned it, but I'll get it pretty soon now. I wish you
knew my father, Miss Dandridge. There isn't any sort of search-light
he can't stand, and it isn't his and mother's fault if I can't stand
them, also."

"I don't think they'd be uneasy if any were to be turned on. I
wouldn't. Good night, Tom. Be careful how you meet Madeleine. How
many times have you seen her since she got here?"

"Just once before this afternoon." His face flushed. "Something is
the matter. She's not like herself. Her mother's up to something."

"When you want to see her, come down here and see me. Don't meet on
corners or in the park, and--and the next time you're engaged don't
let a girl think you're going to wait indefinitely. If she isn't
willing to marry you and go to Pungo if necessary, she isn't the girl
for you to marry. Good night."

At the door I turned. Tom was still standing at the foot of the
steps, staring at me, in his face slow-dawning understanding.

CHAPTER XX

As Selwyn and David Guard shook hands, eagerness of desire must have
been in my face, for Selwyn, turning, seemed puzzled by what he saw.
Going into the room adjoining my sitting-room, I left them alone for
a few moments, and when I came back I was careful to keep out of my
eyes that which as yet it was not wise that they should tell. I have
long since learned a man must not be hurried. Certainly not a man of
Selwyn's type.

Sitting down in a corner of the sofa, I nodded to the men to sit down
also, but that which they had been discussing while I was out of the
room still held, and, returning to it, they stood awhile longer, one
on either side of the mantelpiece, and, hands in my lap, I watched
them with hope in my heart of which they did not dream.

They are strangely contrasting--Selwyn and David Guard. That is, so
far as outward and physical appearance is concerned. But of certain
inward sympathies, certain personal standards of life, certain
intellectual acceptances and rejections, they have far more in common
than they imagine, and to find this basis upon which f