te fair, to him?"

"Then we'll talk about his story. It gripped me---- Oh, let's have it
out, Becky. He loves you and you don't love him. Why don't you?"

"I can't--tell you----"

There was silence for a moment, then Archibald Cope said gently, "Look
here, girl dear, you aren't happy. Don't I know it? There's something
that's awfully on your mind and heart. Can't you think of me as a sort
of--father confessor--and let me--help----?"

She clasped her hands tensely on her knees; the knuckles showed white.
"Nobody can help."

"Is it as bad as that?"

"Yes." She looked away from him. "There is somebody else--not Randy.
Somebody that I shouldn't think about. But I--do----"

She was dry-eyed. But he felt that here was something too deep for
tears.

"Does Randy know?"

"Yes. I told him. We have always talked about things----"

"I see," he sat staring into the fire, "and of course it is Randy that
you ought to marry----"

"I don't want to marry anyone. I shall never marry----"

"Tut-tut, my dear." He laid his hand over hers. "Do you know what I was
thinking, Becky, to-day, as we walked the Boston streets? I was thinking
of why those big houses were built, rows upon rows of them, and of the
people who lived in them. Those old houses speak of homes, Becky, of
people who wanted household gods, and neighborly gatherings, and
community interests. They weren't the kind of people who ran around
Europe with a paint box, as I have been doing. They had home-keeping
hearts and they built for the future."

He was very much in earnest. She had, indeed, never seen him so much in
earnest.

"It is all very well," he went on, "to talk of a tent in a desert or a
hut on a mountain top, but when we walked across the Common this
morning, it seemed to me that if I could really have lived the game we
played--that life could have held nothing better in the world for me
than that, my dear."

She tried to withdraw her hand, but he held it. "Let me speak to-night,
Becky--and then forever, we'll forget it. I love you--very much. You
don't love me, and I should thank the stars for that, although I am not
sure that I do. I am not a man to deal in--futures. I'll tell you why
some day." He drew a long breath and went on in a lighter tone: "But
you, Becky--you've got to find a man whose face you will want to see at
the other end of the table--for life. It sounds like a prisoner's
sentence, doesn't it?"

But he couldn't carry it off like t