hadn't been for you. There! How's that
for a burst of speech, young woman! And wait a minute. Remember, too, my
name was Clarence. I had that to live down."

Fanny was staring at him eyes round, lips parted. "But why?" she said,
faintly. "Why?"

Heyl smiled that singularly winning smile of his. "Since you force me to
it, I think I'm in love with that little, warm-hearted spitfire in the
red cap. That's why."

Fanny sat forward now. She had been leaning back in her chair, her
hands grasping its arms, her face a lovely, mobile thing, across which
laughter, and pity, and sympathy and surprise rippled and played. It
hardened now, and set. She looked down at her hands, and clasped them
in her lap, then up at him. "In that case, you can forsake the strenuous
life with a free conscience. You need never climb another mountain, or
wrestle with another--er--hippopotamus. That little girl in the red cap
is dead."

"Dead?"

"Yes. She died a year ago. If the one who has taken her place were to
pass you on the street today, and see you beset by forty thieves, she'd
not even stop. Not she. She'd say, `Let him fight it out alone. It's
none of your business. You've got your own fights to handle.'"

"Why--Fanny. You don't mean that, do you? What could have made her like
that?"

"She just discovered that fighting for others didn't pay. She just
happened to know some one else who had done that all her life and--it
killed her."

"Her mother?"

"Yes."

A little silence. "Fanny, let's play outdoors tomorrow, will you? All
day."

Involuntarily Fanny glanced around the room. Papers, catalogues, files,
desk, chair, typewriter. "I'm afraid I've forgotten how."

"I'll teach you. You look as if you could stand a little of it."

"I must be a pretty sight. You're the second man to tell me that in two
days."

Heyl leaned forward a little. "That so? Who's the other one?"

"Fenger, the General Manager."

"Oh! Paternal old chap, I suppose. No? Well, anyway, I don't know what
he had in mind, but you're going to spend Sunday at the dunes of Indiana
with me."

"Dunes? Of Indiana?"

"There's nothing like them in the world. Literally. In September
that combination of yellow sand, and blue lake, and the woods beyond
is--well, you'll see what it is. It's only a little more than an hour's
ride by train. And it will just wipe that tired look out of your face,
Fan." He stood up. "I'll call for you tomorrow morning at eight, or
thereabou