"Stir up Minna?" Stull's lips merely formed the question, and his eyes
watched Ruhannah.

"They couldn't. What would she care? All the same, I play safe, Ben.
Well, be good. Better send me mine on pay day. I'll need it."

Stull's face grew sourer:

"Can't you wait till she gets her decree?"

"And lose a month off? No."

"It's all coming your way, Eddie. Stay wise and play safe. Don't start
anything now----"

"It's safe. If I don't take September off I wait a year for
my--honeymoon. And I won't. See?"

They both looked cautiously at Ruhannah, who sat motionless, absorbed
in the turmoil of vehicles and people.

Brandes' face slowly reddened; he dropped one hand on Stull's shoulder
and said, between thin lips that scarcely moved:

"She's all I'm interested in. You don't think much of her, Ben. She
isn't painted. She isn't dolled up the way you like 'em. But there
isn't anything else that matters very much to me. All I want in the
world is sitting in that runabout, looking out of her kid eyes at a
thousand or two people who ain't worth the pair of run-down shoes
she's wearing."

But Stull's expression remained sardonic and unconvinced.

So Brandes got into his car and took the wheel; and Stull watched them
threading a tortuous path through the traffic tangle of Broadway.

They sped past the great hotels, along crowded sidewalks, along the
park, and out into an endless stretch of highway where hundreds of
other cars were travelling in the same direction.

"Did you have a good time?" he inquired, shifting his cigar and
keeping his narrow eyes on the road.

"Yes; it was beautiful--exciting."

"Some horse, Nick Stoner! Some race, eh?"

"I was so excited--with everybody standing up and shouting. And such
beautiful horses--and such pretty women in their wonderful dresses!
I--I never knew there were such things."

He swung the car, sent it rushing past a lumbering limousine, slowed a
little, gripped his cigar between his teeth, and watched the road,
both hands on the wheel.

Yes, things were coming his way--coming faster and faster all the
while. He had waited many years for this--for material fortune--for
that chance which every gambler waits to seize when the psychological
second ticks out. But he never had expected that the chance was to
include a very young girl in a country-made dress and hat.

As they sped westward the freshening wind from distant pine woods
whipped their cheeks; north, blue hills