so late, but, getting no satisfaction, he followed Van Alen
up-stairs, and built a fire for him in the big bedroom. And presently,
in the light of the leaping flames, the roses on the canopy of the bed
glowed pink.

"Ain't you goin' to sleep in the bed?" Otto asked, as he watched Van
Alen arrange the covers on the couch.

"No," said Van Alen shortly, "the honor is too great. It might keep me
awake."

"My feet would hang over," Otto said. "Funny thing, wasn't it, for a man
to make a will like that?"

"I suppose every man has a right to do as he pleases," Van Alen
responded coldly. He was not inclined to discuss the eccentricities of
his little old ancestor with this young giant.

"Of course," Otto agreed, and his next remark was called forth by Van
Alen's pale blue pajamas.

"Well, those are new on me."

Van Alen explained that in the city they were worn, and that silk was
cool, but while he talked he was possessed by a kind of fury. For the
first time the delicate garments, the luxurious toilet articles packed
in his bag, seemed foppish, unnecessary, things for a woman. With all of
them, he could not compete with this fair young god, who used a rough
towel and a tin basin on the kitchen bench.

"Maybe I'd better go," the boy offered. "You'll want to go to bed."

But Van Alen held him. "I always smoke first," he said, and, wrapped in
his dressing-gown, he flung himself into a chair on the opposite side of
the fireplace.

And after a time he brought the conversation around to Mazie Wetherell.

He found the boy rather sure of his success with her.

"All women are alike," he said; "you've just got to keep after them long
enough."

To Van Alen the idea of this hulking youngster as a suitor for such a
woman seemed preposterous. He was not fit to touch the hem of her
garment. He was unmannerly, uneducated; he was not of her class--and
even as he analyzed, the boy stood up, perfect in his strong young
manhood.

"I've never had much trouble making women like me," he said; "and I
ain't goin' to give up, just because she thinks she's better than the
rest round about here."

He went away, and Van Alen stared long into the fire, until the flames
left a heart of opal among the ashes.

He had not been unsuccessful with women himself. Many of them had liked
him, and might have loved him if he had cared to make them. But until
he met Mazie Wetherell he had not cared.

Desperately he wished for some trial of coura