ingly. "It is not always
permitted to us to hear the plaudits or the hisses--happily, I think.
Yet there are always those standing by who are ready to cry '_Io
triumphe_!' and mean it, when one approves himself a good soldier."

The coffee had been served, and Winton sat thoughtfully stirring the
lump of sugar in his cup. Miss Carteret was not having a monopoly of
the new experiences. For instance, it had never before happened to
John Winton to have a woman, young, charming, and altogether lovable,
read him a lesson out of the book of the overcomers.

He smiled inwardly and wondered what she would say if she could know
to what battlefield the drumming wheels of the Limited were speeding
him. Would she be loyal to her mentorship and tell him he must win, at
whatever the cost to Mr. Somerville Darrah and his business
associates? Or would she, womanlike, be her uncle's partizan and write
one John Winton down in her blackest book for daring to oppose the
Rajah?

He assured himself it would make no jot of difference if he knew. He
had a thing to do, and he was purposed to do it strenuously,
inflexibly. Yet in the inmost chamber of his heart, where the
barbarian ego stands unabashed and isolate and recklessly contemptuous
of the moralities minor and major, he saw the birth of an influence
which inevitably must henceforth be desperately reckoned with.

Given a name, this new-born life-factor was love; love barely
awakened, and as yet no more than a masterful desire to stand well in
the eyes of one woman. None the less, he saw the possibilities: that a
time might come when this woman would have the power to intervene;
would make him hold his hand in the business affair at the very
moment, mayhap, when he should strike the hardest.

It was a rather unnerving thought, and when he considered it he was
glad that their ways, coinciding for the moment, would presently go
apart, leaving him free to do battle as an honest soldier in any cause
must.

The Rosemary party was rising, and Winton rose, too, folding the seat
for Miss Virginia and carefully reaching her wrap from the rack.

"I am so glad to have met you," she said, giving him the tips of her
fingers and going back to the conventionalities as if they had never
been ignored.

But the sincerity in Winton's reply transcended the conventional form
of it.

"Indeed, the pleasure has been wholly mine, I assure you. I hope the
future will be kind to me and let me see more o