ble man and such a
paltry sin as eavesdropping had always been beneath me, save on the
one occasion when my duty as Jerry's guardian prompted me to listen
for a few moments at the cabin window last year when Una and Jerry
were settling between them the affairs of the world. That was a
pardonable transgression, this, a different affair, for Jerry was now
released from my guardianship, a grown man ostensibly capable of
managing his own affairs, which, as he had some moments before taken
pains to inform me, were none of mine.

But as luck would have it, the girl walking upstream and Jerry walking
down, they met in the path just beside the rock behind which I was so
uncomfortably reclining and scarcely daring to breathe. I could not
see their faces as they came together, but I heard their voices quite
Distinctly.

"Marcia!" said Jerry, it seemed a trifle harshly. "What are you doing
here?"

With my vision obstructed, the soft tones of her voice seemed to take
an added significance.

"I came," she purred, "because, Jerry, I couldn't stay away."

And then, after a pause, her voice even more silken, "You don't seem
very glad to see me."

"I--I--your appearance surprised me."

"But now that the surprise is over--_are_ you glad to see me?" she
asked.

A pause and then I heard him mutter.

"I didn't suppose that--after yesterday _you_ would want to see _me_."

"Yesterday," she sighed, "twenty-four hours--an age! The surest proof
that I wanted to see you is that I'm here, that I ran away from a
house full of people, just to tell you--"

"Is Channing Lloyd still there?" he broke in harshly.

"Yes, Jerry, he is. But doesn't it mean anything to you that I left
him, to come to you?"

"You broke your promise--to give him up--"

"Why, Jerry, I _had_ to invite him to my dance. It would have been a
slight."

"But you promised. He's a--"

"But I've known him for ages, Jerry. I can't be impolite."

"He's not polite to you, to me, or anybody. I told you I wanted you to
give him up."

"You're fearfully exacting," she said, modulating her voice softly.

"He's a cad. I can't understand your inviting him. His very look is
an insult, his touch a desecration. I don't like the way he paws you."

"Of course, he--he means nothing by it," she said soothingly. "It's
only his way."

"But I don't like his way and I don't like him. I've told you so a
good many times."

"You make it very difficult for me. It would have been i