ring--not the kind of love I
want. I am going out for my walk--you filched it from me. No, I'm going
alone. Go and talk with mamma, if you like."

She escaped the clutch he made and hurried out and to the elevator.

Flushed and angry, Dodd made his way to an inner room where Mrs. Kilgour
was reading a novel, sunning herself with feline indolence. She put the
book by with evident regret.

"Oh, Kate, has so much poise!" she lamented, breaking in on the young
man's complaints. "She is so like her father. No one except myself could
do anything with him at all. Sometime it was very hard for me! He would
set his mind and his teeth! But I always won in the end."

"Well, go ahead and win now," commanded the surly lover. "You are simply
letting this thing run along."

"I know Kate's nature, Richard. It's only a matter of the right time."

He sat down at her feet on the end of the couch.

"The time is here--now!" he told her. "I insist that you make Kate
understand. I have been patient and reasonable for a year. You have
promised me that you will bring everything around all right. Why don't
you do it?"

"But delivering a daughter into marriage isn't like delivering groceries
on order!" Her tone showed a bit of impatience. "Be reasonable!"

"I don't want to say anything to hurt your feelings, but we must get
down to cases. I'm not asking you to deliver anything to me except what
was promised long ago--promised by Kate herself. And you know what you
said when I loaned you five thousand dollars to help you save those
stocks. Excuse me, Mother Kilgour, but I can't always control my nature;
I've been in the game with the bunch for a long time and I'm naturally
suspicious--I have seen a good many chaps trimmed, and I don't propose
to have anything put over on me."

"You are insolent and cruel," she cried, her cheeks pale.

"I don't mean you--I believe you want to help me. But it's time to be
up and doing. She doesn't give me one good reason why she will not be
married right away. It's only jolly and putting it off."

"But you are twitting me about the service you have done me! I am not
selling my daughter!"

"That isn't it at all! But you must agree that I have been good to
you. I want you to be a friend to me. But I don't get anything that's
definite. If this thing drags on and on the first thing I know some
fellow will come along and she'll fall for him. That's the girl nature!"

"You are talking about my daughter, Ri