he did not understand. "Finished raving?" she inquired.

"I gave Corliss a thousand dollars," he said, slowly. "Considering
the fact that it was my last, I flatter myself it was not
unhandsomely done--though I may never need it. It has struck me
that the sum was about what a man who had just cleaned up fifty
thousand might regard as a sort of `extra'--`for lagniappe'--and
that he might have thought it an appropriate amount to invest in a
present some jewels perhaps--to place in the hair of a pretty
friend!"

She sprang to her feet, furious, but he stood in front of her and
was able to bar the way for a moment.

"Cora, I'll have a last word with you if I have to hold you," he
said with great rapidity and in a voice which shook with the
intense repression he was putting upon himself. "We do one thing
in the South, where I came from. We protect our women----"

"This looks like it! Keeping me when----"

"I love you," he said, his face whiter than she had ever seen it.
"I love you! I'm your dog! You take care of yourself if you want
to take care of anybody else! As sure as----"

"My dance, Miss Madison." A young gentleman on vacation from the
navy had approached, and, with perfect unconsciousness of what he
was interrupting, but with well-founded certainty that he was
welcome to the lady, urged his claim in a confident voice. "I
thought it would never come, you know; but it's here at last and
so am I." He laughed propitiatingly.

Ray yielded now at once. She moved him aside with her gloved
forearm as if he were merely an awkward stranger who unwittingly
stood between her and the claiming partner. Carrying the gesture
farther, she took the latter's arm, and smilingly, and without a
backward glance, passed onward and left the gallery. The
lieutenant, who had met her once or twice before, was her partner
for the succeeding dance as well, and, having noted the advantages
of the place where he had discovered her, persuaded her to return
there to sit through the second. Then without any fatiguing
preamble, he proposed marriage. Cora did not accept, but effected
a compromise, which, for the present, was to consist of an
exchange of photographs (his to be in uniform) and letters.

She was having an evening to her heart. Ray's attack on Corliss
had no dimming effect; her thought of it being that she was "used
to his raving"; it meant nothing; and since Ray had prophesied she
would tell Corliss about it, she decided not to