?"

"Of you! Not in my life," cried V.V.... "I ... it's--"

"Why shouldn't you? I know that's what I am. You're--"

"_Don't_.... I can't let things be put upside down like that."

His difficulties, in the unhappy moment, were serious. His skin had
turned traitor to him, sold out his heart. And now, if he had the
necessity of saying something, his was also the fear lest he might say
too much....

"If I ... I appeared to look--conscious, when you asked me that, it was
only because of the--the strange coincidence. I--you compel me to tell
you--though it's like something from another life."

He paused briefly; and when he went on, his voice had acquired something
of that light hardness which Cally had heard in it before now.

"Once, a year ago, when I had never so much as heard your name,
Commissioner O'Neill and I happened to be talking about the local
factory situation, about the point of view of the owners or,--to be
exactly honest,--the owners' families. By chance--I did use those words.
And O'Neill said I was a wild man to talk so, that if I knew any of
these people, personally, I'd never judge them so--so unkindly.... It
was a long time before I saw ... how right he might be.... And that's
what I tried to say to you the other day--when I spoke of _knowing the
people_. I--"

"Yes, sometimes that makes a difference, I know." Had she not felt it
only this afternoon? "But I'm afraid this isn't one of the times ..."

Cally rose, feeling that she desired to go. Nevertheless, glancing at
his troubled face, she was suddenly moved by perhaps the most selfless
impulse she had ever felt in her life.

"Please," she said, gently, "don't mind about that. I liked you better
for it. I like people to say what they think. I've--"

"Do you? Then allow me to say that I'm not quite a bitter fool...."

The young man was advancing toward her, throwing out his hands in a
quaint sort of gesture which seemed to say that he had had about as much
of this as he could stand.

"For surely I don't think I am--I don't think I'm quite so dumb and
blind as you must think me...." His repressed air was breaking up
rapidly, and now he flung out with unmistakable feeling: "Do you suppose
I could ever forget what you did last May! Not if I tried a thousand
years!" said Mr. V.V.... "How could I possibly think anything of you,
after that, but all that is brave and beautiful?..."

The two stood looking at each other. Color came into Cally's che