suppose Margery Randall would resent it if I told her so, but
honestly I pity her; the more so because I've always envied her in a way.
She's not used to denying herself anything, and there's bound to be a
reckoning. It's inevitable, and then--I don't like to think of how it
will be then. It's a tragedy, Steve, nothing more or less."

Opposite the man sat motionless in his place looking at her. All trace of
his usual lounging attitude was absent. He was not even smoking. For
almost a full minute after she was done he sat; then he arose abruptly.
This time he did not offer to come over to her.

"So this is the way you feel," he commented at last, slowly. "It's a new
phase of you entirely, Elice, that I admit; but at least I'm glad to know
it." He thrust his hands deep into his pockets. "In plain English, you'd
barter my position and ambition gladly for--things. Frankly I didn't
think that of you, Elice, before. I imagined I knew you better, knew
different."

Responsive, instinctively the girl started to rise. Her breath came
quick. Swiftly following came second thought and she sank back, back into
the shadow. She said nothing.

A moment the man waited, expecting an answer, a denial, something; when
nothing came he put on his hat with meaning deliberation.

"I repeat I'm very glad you told me, though, even if I do have to
readjust things a bit." He shrugged his shoulders. Despite the wounded
egotism that was urging him on, it was the first real cloud that had
arisen on the horizon of their engagement and he was acutely
self-conscious. "Rest assured, however, that I shall consider your point
of view before I say yes or no to Graham. Just now--" He halted, cleared
his throat needlessly; abruptly, without completing the sentence or
giving a backward glance, he started down the walk. "Good-night, Elice,"
he said.

CHAPTER III

PLEASURE

"The trouble with you, Darley," said Armstrong, "is that you took your
course in the University in too big doses. You went on the principle that
if a little grinding is good for a man a perpetual dig must be a great
deal better." He was in the best of humor this Sunday night, and smiled
at the other genially. "A college course is a good deal like strychnine.
Taken in small doses over a long period of time it is a great tonic.
Swallowed all at once--you know what happens."

From her place in a big easy chair Elice Gleason watched with interest
the result of the badinage, but