hope you'll get a lot of pleasure out of the
machine this Summer."

The girl looked at him quickly.

"I? Are you going away again?"

"Yes. I start West to-morrow. Things are moving faster than I expected."

"And you won't take the car with you?"

"No, I shan't play again for a time. I always had a theory that a man
should know a business he conducts, not take some one else's word for it.
I'm going to put on my corduroys and live with that mine until it grows
up. I don't even know how long that will be. In a way to-night is
good-bye."

The girl said nothing this time.

"I meant what I said, though, in regard to the car," returned Roberts. "I
shall be disappointed if you don't use it a lot. I've always felt as
though it sort of belonged to us together, we've had such a lot of
pleasure out of it in common. They tell me at the garage that while I was
away last time it wasn't out at all. Didn't Steve deliver my message?"

"Yes."

"Won't you promise to do differently the rest of the season?"

Again the girl paused before she answered.

"No," she said then. "You understand why?"

"Not if I request otherwise?"

"Don't request it, please," swiftly, "as a favor. I repeat, you
understand."

"Understand, certainly, what you mean to imply." The big hands on the
man's knees drooped a little wearily. "You don't trust me wholly, even
yet, do you, Elice?" he added abruptly.

"Trust you! That's a bit cruel."

The man shifted in his seat unconsciously.

"If it was I beg your pardon," he said gently. "I didn't intend it so. I
suppose I'm wrong; but what others, mere observers, say seems to me so
trivial. The gossip of people who'd knife you without compunction the
instant your back was turned for their own gratification or gain--to let
them judge and sentence--pardon me once more. I shan't mention the
matter again."

The girl looked steadily out into the night, almost as though its peace
were hers. "Yes," she returned, "you are wrong--but in a different way
than you intimated. It isn't what others would say at all that prevents
my accepting, but my own judgment of myself. You've done so many things
for me; and I in return--I'm never able to do anything whatever. It's a
matter of self-respect wholly. One can't accept, and accept, and accept
always--in the certainty of remaining permanently in debt."

The man looked at her oddly. Then he glanced away.

"No; I suppose not," he acquiesced.

"If there were anything I