d an instant, then
wrung Justin's hand silently and departed.

"Are you busy, Alexander? They said I could come in."

"Why, Girard!"

Justin wheeled a chair around with an instantly brightened face. "Sit
down. I'm mighty glad to see you." He looked smilingly at his visitor,
whose presence, long-limbed, straight, clean, and clear-eyed, always
elicited a peculiar admiration from other men. "I heard that you had a
room at the Snows' now, while Billy is away, but I haven't laid eyes on
you for a month."

"I've been coming in on a later train every morning and going out again
on a very much later one at night. I'm back in town on the paper for a
while."

"Why don't you settle down to something worth while?" asked Justin, with
the reserved disapproval of the business man for any mode of life but
his own.

[Illustration: "MRS. SNOW WAS FUMBLING WITH A PAPER"]

"Settle down to this kind of thing?" said Girard thoughtfully. "Well, I
did think of it last year, when I undertook those commissions for you.
But what's the use--yet awhile, at any rate? You see, I can always make
enough money for what I want and to spare, and there's nobody else to
care. I like my liberty! The love of trade doesn't take hold of me,
somehow--and you have to have such a tremendous amount of capital to
keep your place. By the way, have you sold the island yet?" The island
was a small one up near Nova Scotia, taken once for a debt.

"Not yet."

Girard gave him a quick glance. "How are things going with you?"

"Fine," said Justin in a conventionally prosperous tone, with a sudden
sight of a bottomless pit yawning below him. "I've a few things on my
mind lately--but they're all right now. By the way, how do you like it
at the Snows'?"

"Oh, all right." Girard's gray eyes smiled in an irrepressible smile. "I
score high at present. They all approve of me, and I am told that I am
the only man who has never run into the Boston fern or got tangled in
the Wandering Jew. Miss Bertha and I have long talks together--she's
great. As for Mrs. Snow--she heard Sutton speak of her the other night
to Ada as 'the old lady,' I assure you that since--" He shook his head,
and both men laughed.

"Come to see us. Miss Linden is back with us again," said Justin
hospitably.

"Thank you," said Girard, an indefinable stiffening change instantly
coming over him. "By the way, I mustn't forget what I came for, before I
hurry off."

He took some bills out of his long