y and tell the truth."

Jimmie obeyed, and the contemplation of his hostess seemed to depress him.

"No," he agreed gloomily, "you seem to bear up. No one, looking at your
face, could guess that your heart was in--was in--" Jimmie halted,
vainly searching for the poetical word. Miss Knowles supplied it.

"In torn and bleeding fragments," she supplemented. "No, Jimmie, I'm
sorry. You've laid siege to it in every known way, and yet there's not a
feather out of it."

"There are two ways," Jimmie pondered audibly, "in which I have not
wooed you. One is _a la_ cave dweller. I might knock you on the head
with a knobby club and drag you to my lair. But since my lair is some
blocks away, and since those blocks are studded with the interested
public and the uninterested police, the cave dweller's method will not
serve. There remains one other. I stand before you, so; I take your
hand, so; I may even have to kiss it, so. And I say: 'Dear one, I want
you. Every hour of my life I want you. I want you to take care of, to
work for, to be proud of. I want you to let me teach you what life
means. I want you for my dearest friend, for my everlasting sweetheart,
for my wife.' And when I've said it, I kiss your hand, so; gently, once
again, and wait for your answer."

"Dear boy," said she with an unsteady little laugh, for--as always--she
shrank from his earnestness after she had deliberately roused it, "I
wish you wouldn't talk like that. You make me feel so shallow-pated and
so small. I don't want to talk about life and knowledge and love. And I
don't want any husband at all. What makes you so tragic this afternoon?
You're spoiling our last hour together. Come, be reasonable. Tell me
what you think of Drewitt. Why do you suppose he did it? Did his wife
and daughter know?"

"You're quite sure about the other thing?"

"Unalterably sure. And, Jimmie, dear old Jimmie, there are two things I
want you to do for me. The first is, to abandon forever and forever this
'one topic' of which, you are so proud. Will you?"

"I will not," said Jimmie.

"And the second is: to fall in love with a girl on the boat. There is
always a girl on a boat. Will you?"

"I will," said Jimmie promptly. "It would be just what you deserve."

* * * * *

Miss Knowles bore the absence of her most persistent and accustomed
suitor with a fortitude not predicted by that self-confident young man.
She danced and drove, lunched and