his evening?"

"I shall be studying."

"Oh, rot; don't work so hard."

It was morning in mid-May and Dick Brown was standing in the hallway of
Mrs. Pickens' boarding-house, his hat set back on his head, turning for
the last word with Hertha before he left for his day's task. It was a
grief to him that they did not leave together; but, though she finished
breakfast when he did, and had but a few minutes leeway beyond his time
of departure, she was never ready when the minute came that he must go.
So he stopped this morning to ask his question, knowing the answer,
since he had received it the night before, but anxious to hold the young
girl in conversation before he turned into the engrossing world of
business that drove her from his thoughts. And yet, even when he was
most concentrated on some perplexing detail associated with the handling
of fancy trimmings, she would be back in his mind, far back where he
might not turn to her and yet where, when the hour came that released
him from the bondage of the city's trade, she was present--her brown
eyes, to his fancy, looking at him with more favor than they had yet
shown.

"Well, good-by," he said, grasping the doorknob.

"Good-by," she answered, and turned upstairs to her room.

Whirled through the city and over the bridge, Dick tried to obliterate
the image of the girl he loved and to turn to schemes of business. He
was well aware that he had not yet caught her fancy, that she was not in
the least in love with him, but he reckoned on his staying powers and on
the fortune that some day he meant to lay at her feet. Any one so alone
in the world as she, and she seemed singularly alone, must need a
protector; and if he could only be patient and work diligently the time
might come when she would accept a home filled with every conceivable
thing to use, lovely as the "House Beautiful" rooms exhibited in the
department stores, and where, when she had wandered through the many
chambers and corridors, she would accept the man who stood upon the
threshold eager to bring this, and more, of comfort and luxury and
watchful care into her life. So he sat tense in his seat (he sometimes
got a seat going in to his work) and began with resolute will to ponder
the problem of business success. And as he pondered his face took on a
shrewd and calculating expression at variance with his youthful frame
and his bright, speckled necktie.

At noon he went into a restaurant frequented by man