of the future she saw her use. It gladdened her
and filled her with a serene happiness possible only to those who feel
themselves a necessary and integral part in the lives of the ones they
love. Dimly she perceived this truth. Dimly beyond it she glimpsed that
other great truth of nature, that the human being is rarely completely
efficient alone, that in obedience to his greater use he must take to
himself a mate before he can succeed.

Suddenly she jumped to her feet with an exclamation.

"Oh, Harry! I'd forgotten utterly!" she cried in laughing consternation.
"I have a luncheon here at half-past one! It's almost that now. I must
run and dress. Just look at me; just LOOK! YOU did that!"

"I'll wait here until the confounded thing is over," said Thorpe.

"Oh, no, you won't," replied Hilda decidedly. "You are going down town
right now and get something to put on. Then you are coming back here to
stay."

Thorpe glanced in surprise at his driver's clothes, and his spiked
boots.

"Heavens and earth!" he exclaimed, "I should think so! How am I to get
out without ruining the floor?"

Hilda laughed and drew aside the portiere.

"Don't you think you have done that pretty well already?" she asked.
"There, don't look so solemn. We're not going to be sorry for a single
thing we've done today, are we?" She stood close to him holding the
lapels of his jacket in either hand, searching his face wistfully with
her fathomless dusky eyes.

"No, sweetheart, we are not," replied Thorpe soberly.

Chapter LIX

Surely it is useless to follow the sequel in detail, to tell how Hilda
persuaded Thorpe to take her money. She aroused skillfully his fighting
blood, induced him to use one fortune to rescue another. To a woman
such as she this was not a very difficult task in the long run. A few
scruples of pride; that was all.

"Do not consider its being mine," she answered to his objections.
"Remember the lesson we learned so bitterly. Nothing can be greater than
love, not even our poor ideals. You have my love; do not disappoint me
by refusing so little a thing as my money."

"I hate to do it," he replied; "it doesn't look right."

"You must," she insisted. "I will not take the position of rich wife to
a poor man; it is humiliating to both. I will not marry you until you
have made your success."

"That is right," said Thorpe heartily.

"Well, then, are you going to be so selfish as to keep me waiting while
you make an e