"Nearly midnight. But that's nothing in New York. And, anyhow, if he is
asleep, we will wake him up. I am going to tell him that George is at
Siasconset."

"But, my dear, what good will it do?"

"He's got to save Becky. I know Dalton's tricks and his manners. He can
cast a glamour over anything. And Randy's the man for her. Oh, Mark,
just think of her money and his genius----"

"What have money and genius to do with it?"

"Nothing, unless they love each other. But--she cares---- You should
have seen her eyes when I said he had sold his story. But she doesn't
know that she cares, and he's got to make her know."

"How can he make her know?"

"Let her see him--now. She has never seen him as he was in New York with
us, sure of himself, knowing that he has found the thing that he can do.
He was beautiful with that radiant boy-look. You know he was, Mark,
wasn't he?"

"Yes, my darling, yes."

"And I want him to be happy, don't you?"

"Of course, dear heart."

"Then get him on the 'phone. I'll do the rest."

IV

Randy, in New York, acclaimed by a crowd of enthusiasts who had read his
story as a gold nugget picked up from a desert of literary mediocrity.
Randy, not knowing himself. Randy, modest beyond belief. Randy, in his
hotel at midnight, walking the floor with his head held high, and saying
to himself, "I've done it."

It seemed to him that, of course, it could not be true. The young editor
who had eyed him through shell-rimmed glasses had said, "There's going
to be a lot of hard work ahead--to keep up to this----"

Randy, in his room, laughed at the thought of work. What did hardness
matter? The thing that really mattered was that he had treasure to lay
at the feet of Becky.

He sat down at the desk to write to her, cheeks flushed, eyes bright, a
hand that shook with excitement.

"I am to meet a lot of big fellows to-morrow--I shall feel like an
ugly duckling among the swans--oh, the _swans_, Becky, did we ever
think that the Trumpeter in his old glass case----"

The telephone rang. Randy, answering it, found Madge at the other end.
There was an exchange of eager question and eager answer.

Then Randy hung up the receiver, tore up his note to Becky, asked the
office about trains, packed his bag, and went swift in a taxi to the
station.

It was not until he was safe in his sleeper, and racketing through the
night, that he remembered the meeting with the literary swans and the
edi