e met the dark young man in the hall an hour later, she
discovered that he had keen eyes and a mocking smile.

He stopped her. "Do we have to be introduced? I am going to stay here.
Did Mrs. Bower tell you?"

"She told me you were writing a book."

"Don't tell anybody else; I'm not proud of it."

"Why not?"

He shrugged. "My stories are pot-boilers, most of them--with everybody
happy in the end."

"Why shouldn't everybody be happy in the end?"

"Because life isn't that way."

"Life is what we make it."

"Who told you that?"

She flushed. "It is what I tell my school children."

"But have you found it so?"

She faltered. "No--but perhaps it is my fault."

"It isn't anybody's fault. If the gods smile--we are happy. If they
frown, we are miserable. That's all there is to it."

"I should hate to think that was all." She was roused and ready to fight
for her ideals. "I should hate to think it."

"All your hating won't make it as you want it," his glance was quizzical,
"but we won't quarrel about it."

"Of course not," stiffly.

"And we are to be friends? You see I am to stay a month."

"Are you going to write about us?"

"I shall write about the Old Gentlemen. Is there always such a crowd of
them?"

"Only on holidays and week-ends."

"Perhaps I shall write about you----" daringly. "I need a little lovely
heroine."

Her look stopped him. His face changed. "I beg your pardon," he said
quickly. "I should not have said that."

"Would you have said it if I had not waited on the table?" Her voice was
tremulous. The color that had flamed in her cheeks still dyed them. "I
thought of it last night, after I went up-stairs. I have been trying to
teach my little children in my school that there is dignity in service,
and so--I have helped Mrs. Bower. But I felt that people did not
understand."

"You felt that we--thought less of you?"

"Yes," very low.

"And that I spoke as I did because I did not--respect you?"

"Yes."

"Then I beg your pardon. Indeed, I do beg your pardon. It was
thoughtless. Will you believe that it was only because I was
thoughtless?"

"Yes." But her troubled eyes did not meet his. "Perhaps I am too
sensitive. Perhaps you would have said--the same things--to Eve
Chesley--if you had just met her. But I am sure you would not have said
it in the same tone."

He held out his hand to her. "You'll forgive me? Yes? And be friends?"

She did not seem to see his hand. "Of course I