e was sure the colour that mounted
in her cheeks held no tinge of displeasure.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Elden lost no time in making his first call upon the Hardys. He had
discussed the matter with Irene over the telephone. "We are hardly in
order yet," she had explained. "We are in a chaos of house-furnishing,
but you will be welcome. And there may be boxes to lift, and carpets
to lay, and heavy things to shove about."

He found, however, that very fine order had already been established in
the Hardy home, or, at any rate, in that part of it available to
visitors. Mrs. Hardy would have barred, with her own robust body if
necessary, his admission into any such surroundings as Irene had
pictured. Irene received him cordially, but Mrs. Hardy evinced no more
warmth than propriety demanded. Elden, however, allowed himself no
annoyance over that. A very much greater grievance had been thrust
upon his mind. Conward had preceded him, and was already a guest of
the Hardys.

Dave had accepted the fact of Conward's dinner party as a natural
enough occurrence, and after Irene's explanation he had dismissed it
from his mind. Conward's presence in the Hardy home was a more serious
matter. He knew Conward well enough to know that purpose always lay
behind his conduct, and during the small talk with which they whiled
away an hour his mind was reaching out acutely, exploring every nook of
possibility, to arrive, if it could, at some explanation of the sudden
interest which Conward was displaying in the Hardys. These
explanations narrowed down to two almost equally unpalatable. Conward
was deliberately setting about to capture the friendship, perhaps the
affection, of either Mrs. Hardy or Irene. Strangely enough, Elden was
more irritated by the former alternative than by the latter. He felt
that if Conward's purposes were directed towards Irene that was at
least fair warfare; he could not bring himself to think similarly of a
suit that involved Mrs. Hardy. Perhaps this attitude was due to
subconscious recognition of the fact that he had much more to fear from
Conward as a suitor for the hand of Mrs. Hardy than as a rival for that
of Irene. On the latter score he had no misgivings; he was confident
of his ability to worst any adversary in that field, and competition
would lend a piquancy to his courtship not altogether without
advantages; but he had no such confidence in the case of an assault
upon the heart of the e