of Alice's, just
graduated from college, the "other man" of the cotillon favors, was the
first invited guest for the prospective cruise on Mr. Van Ostend's
yacht, did not dovetail with his intentions. It angered him to think of
being thwarted at this point.

"Why must such a girl cross my path just as I was getting on my feet
with Alice?" he asked himself, manlike illogically impatient with Aileen
when he should have lost patience with himself. But in the next moment
he found himself dwelling in thought on the lovely light in the eyes
raised so frankly to his, on the promises of loyalty those same eyes
would hold for him if only he were to speak the one word which she was
waiting to hear--which she had a right to hear after his last visit in
July to Flamsted.

If he had not kissed her that once! With a girl like Aileen there could
be no trifling--what then?

He cursed himself for his heedless folly, yet--he knew well enough that
he would not have denied himself that moment of bliss when the girl in
response to his whispered words of love gave him her first kiss, and
with it the unspoken pledge of her loving heart.

"I'm making another ass of myself!" he spoke aloud and continued to chew
the end of a cold cigar.

The New York office was deserted in these last days of August except for
two clerks who had just left to take an early train to the beach for a
breath of air. The treasurer of the Flamsted Quarries Company was
sitting idle at his desk. It was an off-time in business and he had
leisure to assure himself that he was without doubt the quadruped
alluded to above--"An ass that this time is in danger of choosing
thistles for fodder when he can get something better."

Only the day before he had concluded on his own account a deal, that
cost him much thought and required an extra amount of a certain kind of
courage, with a Wall Street firm. Now that this was off his hands and
there was nothing to do between Friday and Monday, when he was to start
for Bar Harbor to join the Van Ostends and a large party of invited
guests for a three weeks' cruise on the Labrador coast, he had plenty of
time to convince himself that he possessed certain asinine qualities
which did not redound to his credit as a man of sense. In his idle
moments the thought of Aileen had a curious way of coming to the surface
of consciousness. It came now. He whirled suddenly to face his desk
squarely; tossed aside the cold cigar in disgust; touched