st bit sorry," he asked, "that you turned me
down--for a business career?"

"I didn't turn you down," she said. "We couldn't agree on certain things:
that's all."

"On what, for instance?"

"That love is the one great thing in life, for instance. You always said
it was--especially to a girl. And I always said there were other things
in a woman's life, too--that love shouldn't monopolize her any more than
it does a man."

"You were wrong, Mary, and you know you were wrong."

"I was right, Wally, and you know I was right. Because, don't you
see?--if love is the only thing in life, and love fails, a person's whole
life is in ruins--and that isn't fair--"

"It's true, though," he answered, more to himself than to her. Again he
unconsciously assumed a listening attitude, as one who is trying to catch
a sound from afar.

"Wally!" said Mary. "What on earth are you listening for?"

Again it pleased him to answer her with a riddle.

"Italian opera," he said; and turning back to the keyboard he began--

"Woman is fickle
False altogether
Moves like a feather
Borne on the breezes--"

"Did you ever sing when you were flying?" she asked, trying to shake him
out of his mood.

The question proved a happy one. For nearly two hours they chatted and
smiled and hummed old airs together--that is to say, Wally hummed them
and Mary tried, for, as you know, she couldn't sing but could only follow
the melody with a sort of a deep note far down in her throat, always
pretending that she wasn't doing it and shyly laughing when Wally nodded
in encouragement and tried to get her to sing up louder.

"Eleven o'clock!" he exclaimed at last. "That's the first time in three
months--"

Whatever it was, he didn't finish it, but when he bade her good-bye he
said in a low voice, "Young lady, do you know that you played the very
Old Ned with my life when you turned me down?"

But Mary wouldn't follow him there, either.

"Good-bye, Wally," she said, and just before he went down to his car, she
saw him standing on the step, his face turned toward the drive as though
still listening for that distant sound--that sound which never came.

The riddle was solved the next morning.

Helen appeared at the office soon after nine and the moment she saw Mary
she said, "Has Wally 'phoned you this morning?"

"No," said Mary.

Her cousin looked relieved.

"I want you to fib for me," she said. "You know the way the men stick
together.... Well,