roubles
to him; but second thought restrained her. He was too much a part of that
casual, irresponsible world to take anything it did or said seriously.
She called through the door to him that she had gone to bed and was going
to stay there.

But she did not stay there. She got up and knelt by the open window,
looking across the seething mass of humanity on the boardwalk below to
the calm stretches of blue sea beyond. For the first time, she faced her
problem fairly and squarely. Up to now she had been trying to compromise,
to be broad and tolerant and cosmopolitan. But she had to admit that the
new life satisfied her no more than the old had. One was too
circumscribed, the other too free. If it was true that she had no talent
and was simply tolerated in the company because of Harold Phipps, she
must know it at once. To be drawing a salary that she did not earn, and
accepting favors for which a definite reward would be expected, was
utterly intolerable to her.

A wild desire seized her to go back to New York and seek another
engagement. In spite of what that odious article said, she believed that
she could succeed on the stage. Papa Claude believed in her; the Kendall
School people were enthusiastic about her work; they would help her to
make another start.

But did she honestly want to make another start? A conscience that had
overslept itself began to stir and waken. After all, what did the
plaudits of hundreds of unknown people count for, when the approval and
affection of those nearest and dearest was withdrawn? What would any
success count for against the disgust she felt for herself.

A wave of terrific homesickness swept over her. But what was it she
wanted, she asked herself, in place of this gay kaleidoscope of light and
color and ceaseless confusion? Not the stagnation of the Bartlett
household, certainly not the slipshod poverty of the Martels. She
searched her heart for the answer.

And as she knelt there with her head on the window-sill, looking
miserably out to sea, a strange thing happened to her. In a moment of
swift, sure vision she saw Quinby Graham's homely, whimsical face, she
felt his strong arms around her, and into her soul came a deep, still
feeling of unutterable content.

"I am coming, Quin!" she whispered, with a little catch in her voice.

Then it was that Destiny played her second trump for Quin. It was in the
form of a telegram that a bell-boy brought up from the office, and it
ann