enographer away. The _debacle_ had arrived, and I was no more ready
to meet it than any other spendthrift of good repute caught red-handed
would have been.

"I think you can guess pretty well what I have come to say, Bertrand,"
Everton said, after the door had closed behind the outgoing shorthand
man. "I have been putting it off in the hope that your own sense of
the fitness of things would come to the rescue. I may be old-fashioned
and out of touch with the times and the manners of the new generation,
but I can't forget that I am a father, or that common decency still has
its demands."

Out of the depths of my humiliation there emerged, full-grown, a huge
respect for this quiet-eyed ex-schoolmaster who, for the few of us who
knew him, lived the life of a studious recluse among his technical
mechanisms in the laboratory. He was a salaried man, and I was one of
his three employers. That he was able to ignore completely the
business relation was a mark of the man.

He waited for his reply but I had none to make. After a time he went
on, without heat, but equally without regard for anything but the
despicable fact.

"For quite a long time, if I am informed correctly, you have been
associating in Denver with a set of people who, whatever else may be
said about them, are not people with whom my daughter would care to
associate. More than this, you have allowed your name to become
coupled with that of a woman whose reputation, past and present, is not
altogether of the best. Tell me if I am accusing you wrongfully."

"You are not," I admitted.

"I have been waiting and postponing this talk in the hope that you
would realize that you are not doing Polly fair justice. Like most
American fathers, I am not supposed to know how matters stand between
you, and I deal only with the facts as they appear to an onlooker. The
home has been open to you, and you have made such use of your welcome
as to lead others to believe that you are Polly's lover."

"I am," I asserted.

"Ah," he said; "that clears the ground admirably. I like you,
Bertrand, and I shall be glad to hear your defense, if you have any."

What could I say? Driven thus into a corner, I could only protest,
rather incoherently, that I loved Polly, and that, in other
circumstances, I should long since have asked her to be my wife.

"The 'circumstances' are connected with Miss Geddis?" he asked
pointedly.

"Only incidentally. Considered for herself, M