leepless hours, not
so few, the incredible loneliness would rush upon him, not lessened by
custom; and a more poignant sense of loss. To that vague sense he
carefully denied words, lest definition add to the hurt.

Perhaps he was more than a little morbid. Men are apt to be so, when
harassed overlong by care. And perhaps he made a mistake, shunning his
friends and seeking an anodyne only in a wearying routine.

That afternoon the subject of the noon hour's chat came into David's
quarters to ask a question about some drawings. The errand
accomplished, he, too, lingered. He refused the chair David vacated
and sat on the table.

"I heard you and Miss Summers talking a while ago," he said abruptly.

"You said you heard--" David looked up, self-conscious.

"I heard you laughing." Radbourne's eyes twinkled keenly down on his
draftsman. "So you were talking about me?"

"There was nothing you couldn't have heard--without offense, sir."

"I know that. Miss Summers is a loyal friend."

"I hope the same can be said of me, sir."

"Would you mind," Jonathan asked, "not sirring me like that? That's a
very fine young lady, Mr. Quentin."

"Evidently," said David, though with something less than his employer's
enthusiasm.

"An inspiration to any man," Jonathan continued.

"I have no doubt."

Jonathan smiled. "Meaning you do doubt it? But I forgot--you probably
don't know. She had a disappointment, Mr. Quentin, a heavy one, and
she bore it as--as you and I would have been proud to. She had a
voice. And just as she was beginning to make her living out of it and
getting ready for bigger things, she took diphtheria. It left her
throat so weak that she had to give up singing, altogether for a while,
professionally for good."

"Why, that was too bad!"

"It was very bad. But she didn't whine. Just put it behind her.
Since she had to make her own living somehow, she went to a commercial
school and studied bookkeeping. I was lucky enough to get her."

"She could really sing?"

"She would have gone far, very far. I had happened to hear her and I
followed her progress closely enough to know. I have never been
reconciled--"

Jonathan broke off sharply, staring hard at a crack in the wall. The
little blue eyes were very sad. David, too, fell into a long
thoughtful silence.

He broke it at last. "As you say--"

Jonathan started, as if he had forgotten David's presence.

"As you say, it called for mo