r lost sight of the fact that he was making himself over for Eleanor,
and the prize at stake was so colossal that no obstacles deterred him. To
be sure, this was not by any means his first amatory venture. As Rose
Martel had said, he "had a way with him"--a way that had kept him
involved in affairs of the heart since the early days in Nanking when he
had succumbed to the charms of a slant-eyed little Celestial at the
tender age of seven. He had always had a girl, just as he had always had
a job; but both had varied with time and place. With a vocabulary of a
dozen words and the sign language, he had managed to flirt across France
and back again. He had frivoled with half a dozen trained nurses in as
many different hospitals, and had even had a sentimental round with a
pretty young stewardess on the transport coming home.

But this affair had been quite different. Instead of wading about in the
shallows of love, he had tumbled in head first, and found himself beyond
his depth and out of sight of land. It was a case of sink or swim, and
Quin was determined not to sink if he could help himself.

The fact that Eleanor Bartlett was not of his world, that she apparently
never gave him a second thought, that he had less than nothing on which
to build his hopes, only made him take a deeper breath and a longer
stroke.

The first gleam of encouragement he had received was that Sunday in the
country, when for the fraction of a second she had let him hold her hand.
Since then he had written her five letters and received but one brief
note in reply. Her silence, however, did not depress him. She had told
him she hated to write letters, a sentiment he fully shared. Only in this
case he could not help himself. The moment anything of interest happened,
he was seized with an uncontrollable impulse to tell Eleanor. He would
rush home from the university at night, go up to his room, and, using the
corner of his bureau for a desk, cover pages of lined tablet paper with a
detailed account of the day's adventures. When every doubtful word has to
be looked up in the dictionary, and newly acquired knowledge concerning
participles and personal pronouns duly applied, letter-writing is a
serious business. Sometimes a page was copied three times before it met
with the critical approval of the composer.

Since the passing of the acute financial crisis in the Mattel family,
Papa Claude had revived amazingly, and was once more wearing a rose in
hi