romantic in this accidental meeting.

"What luck!" The severity melted from his features while he took his
place beside her. "I was thinking only this morning that I owe a
sacrifice to the god of chance. May I tell the man to drop me at my
rooms?"

She nodded, watching him contentedly while he spoke to the chauffeur and
then turned to look at her with his level impersonal gaze. Happiness had
brought the youth back to her face. Her hair swept like burnished wings
under her small close hat, and the eyes that she raised to his were dark
and splendid. There was about her always in moments of happiness the
look of a beauty too bright to last or to grow old; and now, in this
last romance of her life, she appeared to be drenched in autumn
sunshine.

"One does want to make sacrifices," she answered. "That is the penalty
of joy. One can scarcely believe in it before it goes."

"Well, I believe in this. You are very lovely. Where have you been?"

"To the Governor's. I wanted to speak to Patty. I feel sorry for Patty
to-day. I feel sorry for almost every one," she added, with an
enchanting smile, "except myself."

"And me. Surely you don't waste your pity on me? But what of Miss Vetch?
Hasn't she her own particular happiness?"

"I wonder--" Then, without finishing her sentence, she left the subject
of Patty because she surmised from Benham's tone that he would not be
sympathetic. "I had a long talk with the Governor. John, what do you
think will come of the strike?"

He answered her question with another. "What did he tell you?"

"Nothing except that the men have a right to strike if they wish to."

He laughed. "Well, that's safe enough. But don't talk of Vetch. I
dislike him so heartily that I have a sneaking feeling I may be unjust
to him."

It was so like him, that fine impersonal sense of fairness, that her
eyes warmed with admiration. "That is splendid," she responded. "It is
just the kind of thing that Vetch could never feel." Suddenly she knew
that she was ashamed of having believed in Vetch when she contrasted him
with John Benham. How could she have imagined for an instant that the
Governor could stand a comparison like this?

He pressed her hand as the car stopped before the apartment house where
he lived. "In a few hours I shall see you again," he said; and his
voice, in its eagerness, reminded her of the voice of Kent Page when he
had made love to her in her girlhood. Ah, she had learned wisdom since
the