nough.

Later still they went out and walked, till he had only time enough left
in which to catch his train. Both of them were silent. Neither felt any
inclination to talk. But Cecille's brain had been as uncannily busy as
that of one who lies awake throughout a white and sleepless night. And
she had believed this bodiless activity to be the process of sound
reasoning; she had found some security in the conclusions she had formed.

But when they turned back toward the apartment the whole brilliant
structure proved treacherous. It toppled. She was back where she had
started, cornered, driven now for time. She couldn't stand it. He would
go--and he'd never come back. Never! What was there in it for her?
What was she waiting for?

Play the game? Fight? She knew she wasn't clever like Felicity, but she
conceived what she thought was a desperate expedient, nor realized that
it was pitifully transparent. There was no elevator in their building.
Perry had a habit of striking matches to light the darker portions of the
stairs, though that was silly. She'd told him; she knew every step of
the way. But to-night when he struck the first one, she raced ahead.
When it flickered and suddenly went out, she crumpled. At her cry, which
brought him swiftly, he found her a little heap upon the stair. Her
ankle was doubled beneath her.

"I've twisted it," she said.

She wasn't clever, like Felicity, and yet how simple it was!

He picked her up. He carried her like no weight at all. And she lay
very close against him, her head on his crooked elbow, her arms about his
neck. They had left a light burning in the box of a sitting-room. And
as he entered there Perry Blair, looking down at her delicately parted
lips and faintly fatigue-penciled eyes, breathed deeply once, and smiled.

He'd been quickly skeptical; he was certain now. No one who had just
twisted an ankle was content and serene as that.

And that was when Perry Blair first saw Cecille Manners--first saw her
with seeing eyes. He looked down at her and in that instant learned how
infinitely precious and flagrantly bold girlhood like hers could be.

He carried her to a couch. She lay quiet, her eyes still closed. But
when, after a glance at his watch, he would have tried to ascertain the
extent of the damage, which he knew was no damage at all, she sprang
erect, and flamed at him, and struck his hands aside.

"No!" she gasped. "No!"

And then she p