room full of girls.
We'll simply have to plant a contract on him and--then let him go!"

"Do you think it's only that?" she said again, faintly.

"I leave it to you. Use your reason, and figure it out for yourself. I
don't mean that you're in any danger. You know you're not as long as I'm
around!"

She thanked him with a wan smile.

"But how can I let him come near me--now?"

"It's a mess. I'm sorry about it. But once the deal goes through I'll
make this up to you if it takes me the rest of my life. You believe me?"

"I know you're true blue, Ben! And--I trust you."

He was a little disturbed to find that his pulse was decidedly quickened
by that simple speech.

"Besides, I want to thank you for letting me know this. I understand
everything about him now!"

In her heart of hearts she was hating David with all her might. For all
night long, in her dreams, she had been seeing again the gestures of
those strong brown hands, and the flash of his eyes, and hearing the
deep tremor of his voice. The newness of this primitive man and his ways
and words had been an intoxicant to her; because of his very difference
she was a little afraid, and now the warning of Connor chimed in
accurately with a premonition of her own. That adulation poured at the
feet of Ruth Manning had been a beautiful and marvelous thing; but flung
down simply in honor of her sex it became almost an insult. The memory
made her shudder. The ideal lover whom she had prefigured in some of her
waking dreams had always spoken with ardor--a holy ardor. From this
passion of the body she recoiled.

Something of all this Connor read in her face and in her thoughtful
silence, and he was profoundly contented. He had at once neutralized all
of David's eloquence and fortified his own position. It was both a blow
driven home and a counter. Not that he would admit a love for the girl;
he had merely progressed as far as jealousy. He told himself that his
only interest was in keeping her from an emotion which, once developed,
might throw her entirely on the side of David and ruin their joint
plans. He had refused to accompany the master of the Garden and the girl
on their ride through the valley because, as he told himself, he
"couldn't stand seeing another grown man make such an ass of himself" as
David did when he was talking with the girl.

He contented himself now with watching her face when David came back to
the patio, followed by Glani and the neat-steppi