busy saving themselves."

"There is only one man who can help you."

"Thayer?"

"No; yourself. Sidney, I hate to discuss this thing, for it has come
between us and spoiled life for us both; but you have no right to depend
on Mr. Thayer as you do. You aren't a child, and you can fight your own
way out of this."

"What's the use now?"

"Use! Everything. Your whole manhood."

"But in the end? What does it all amount to?"

"Surely, you aren't child enough to need a bribe?" she asked in sharp
scorn.

Her scorn stung him to rapid speech.

"Beatrix, ever since I turned into manhood, I have known this danger of
mine, and I have tried to fight it for the sake of the woman I might
love, some day. Laugh, if you will. Perhaps it is funny; but it has a
certain pitiful side to it, this trying to keep one's self clean for the
sake of the woman one has never yet seen. Then, last fall, I did see
her. Since then, the fight has been easier; perhaps I've not lost so
many battles. It all seemed more worth while. And now--"

"And now?" Her voice was almost inaudible.

"Now I have had it all and lost it, lost it through my own fault, and
there doesn't seem to be anything left worth fighting for."

There was a long silence. At length, Beatrix rose.

"Sidney," she said, as she slowly held out both hands to him; "shall we
fight side by side for a little longer?"

CHAPTER TEN

"I've manufactured a new definition of happiness," Sally said to Bobby
Dane, six months later.

"What now?"

"Think with the mob."

"Who has rubbed you the wrong way, this time?" Bobby queried
unsympathetically.

"Everybody. I am so tired of hearing people praise Beatrix for marrying
Sidney Lorimer."

Bobby halted and shook hands with her, to the manifest wonder of the
post-ecclesiastical Fifth Avenue throng.

"That's where even your head is level, Sally," he said, as he resumed
his stroll. "Do you want to know what I think of her?"

"If you agree with me; not otherwise. I hate arguments, and, besides, it
is bad form to condemn one's dearest friend. But keeping still so long
has nearly driven me to--"

"Tetanus," Bobby suggested. "Well, my impression of Beatrix is that she
is a bally idiot. I don't know just what _bally_ means; but our English
brethren apply it in critical cases, and so it is sure to be right. Yes,
I think Beatrix is very bally indeed."

"Then you don't approve, either?"

"Me? I? I have hated Lorimer from the start