there permanently without any Government position, have introduced
an element of expense and display that interferes very much with the
natural selection of which Mr. Morgan speaks. But you will see. We are
all right sorry to have you leave us," Margaret added, turning towards
him with frank, unclouded eyes.

"It is very good in you to say so. I have spent here the most delightful
days of my life."

"Oh, that is charming flattery. You will make us all very conceited."

"Don't mock me, Miss Debree. I hoped I had awakened something more
valuable to me than conceit," Lyon said, with a smile.

"You have, I assure you: gratitude. You have opened quite another world
to us. Reading about foreign life does not give one at all the same
impression of it that seeing one who is a part of it does."

"And don't you want to see that life for yourself? I hope some time--"

"Of course," Margaret said, interrupting; "all Americans expect to go to
Europe. I have a friend who says she should be mortified if she reached
heaven and there had to confess that she never had seen Europe. It is
one of the things that is expected of a person. Though you know now that
the embarrassing question that everybody has to answer is, 'Have you
been to Alaska?' Have you been to Alaska, Mr. Lyon?"

This icy suggestion seemed very inopportune to Lyon. He rose and walked
a step or two, and stood by the fire facing her. He confessed, looking
down, that he had not been in Alaska, and he had no desire to go there.
"In fact, Miss Debree," he said, with effort at speaking lightly, "I
fear I am not in a geographical mood today. I came to say good-by,
and--and--"

"Shall I call my aunt?" said Margaret, rising also.

"No, I beg; I had something to say that concerns us; that is, that
concerns myself. I couldn't go away without knowing from you--that is,
without telling you--"

The color rose in Margaret's cheek, and she made a movement of
embarrassment, and said, with haste: "Some other time; I beg you will
not say--I trust that I have done nothing that--"

"Nothing, nothing," he went on quickly; "nothing except to be yourself;
to be the one woman"--he would not heed her hand raised in a gesture of
protest; he stood nearer her now, his face flushed and his eyes eager
with determination--"the one woman I care for. Margaret, Miss Debree, I
love you!"

Her hand that rested on the table trembled, and the hot blood rushed to
her face, flooding her in an agon