n?"

"As if you didn't know--as if _everybody_ doesn't know!" Martha Jane
laughed half sardonically.

"But I don't know what you mean." Something new and bountiful in its
promise of joy filled John and drove the words from his palpitating
tongue.

"The idea!" scoffed Martha Jane. "Well, if you don't know it you are
blind as a bat in daytime. Brother knows it, I know it--everybody knows
it."

"Knows what?" John demanded, his breath checked, his eyes gleaming, his
whole being athrob under the dawn of an ecstasy the plain girl seemed to
offer.

"Well, I'm not going to tell you, if you don't know," the girl
answered, with a little shrug. "But if you want to understand, watch my
poor brother. He never had a look like that before. She has been his
very life. People that doubt real love ought to know Joel. He would go
through fire and water for Tilly. He'd steal, he'd kill, he'd do
anything. He is desperate to-night. When we got to her house and found
that you and she were going to walk out here, it was the last straw. But
he is a gentleman, my brother is, and he will never make a row over it."

Under the sheer blaze of this information, John stood speechless. He,
boldly now, gave his arm to his little companion and they started to
walk back and forth on the lawn as others were doing. His face was now
turned from Tilly, but subconsciously he could fairly feel her
proximity. John almost loved the little woman on his arm. How could he
help it? She was so kind to him.

They were turning toward the steps when Tilly and Eperson approached.
There was a wilted look of resignation on Eperson's face, a sentient
animation in Tilly's eyes and about her lips, when she said to John:

"I hope you are having a good time and meeting all the girls. Sally said
she would look after you."

He smiled and nodded. Something seemed to bear down on his brain and
befog his sight. The lights, the lawn, the people, swirled around him.

"Yes, I'm all right," he said.

They were all on the veranda now and Joel stood facing his rival, a look
of wondering respect in his shrinking gaze.

"Oh, Joel!" a voice was heard, and Sally Teasdale approached. "We need
you. Mother is going to serve the refreshments and all the men who know
the ins and outs of our kitchen are helping wait on the crowd. Will you
come? Father is already unable to walk steady."

CHAPTER XIV

Joel blandly and gallantly complied. His sister, now thrown with John
and