r pride in loving
and being loved so overbore the knowledge that only sorrow could
result to herself and Lestrange, that her eyes shone wide and lustrous
and her lips curved softly.

Mr. Ffrench was almost in high spirits.

"The boy was merely developing," he stated, over his grape-fruit. "I
have been unjust to Richard. For two months Bailey has been talking of
his interest in the business and attendance at the factory, but I was
incredulous. Although I fancied I observed a change--have you
observed a change in him, Emily?"

"Yes," Emily confirmed, "a very great change. He has grown up, at
last."

"Ah? I can not express to you how it gratifies me to have a Ffrench
representing me in public; have you seen the morning journals?"

"I have just come down-stairs."

He picked up the newspaper beside him and passed across the folded
page.

"_All in readiness for Beach Contest_," the head-lines ran. "_Last big
driver to arrive, Lestrange is in Mercury camp with R. Ffrench,
representative of Company._"

And there was a blurred picture of a speeding car with driver and
mechanician masked to goblinesque non-identity, with the legend
underneath: "'_Darling' Lestrange, in his Mercury on the Georgia
course._"

"Next year I shall make him part owner. It was always my poor
brother's desire to have the future name still Ffrench and Ffrench. He
was not thinking of Richard then; he had hope of--"

Emily lifted her gaze from the picture, recalled to attention by the
break.

"Of?" she echoed vaguely.

"Of one who is unworthy thought. Richard has redeemed our family from
extinction; that is at rest." He paused for an instant. "My dear
child, when you are married and established, I shall be content."

Her breathing quickened, her courage rose to the call of the moment.

"If Dick is here, if he is instead of a substitute," she said,
carefully quiet in manner, "would it matter, since I am only a girl,
whom I married, Uncle Ethan?"

The recollection of that evening when Emily had given her promise of
aid, stirred under Mr. Ffrench's self-absorbtion. He looked across the
table at her colorless, eager face with perhaps his first thought of
what that promise might have cost her.

"No," he replied kindly. "It is part of my satisfaction that you are
set free to follow your own choice, without thought of utility or
fortune. Of course, I need not say provided the man is of your own
class and associations. We will fear no more low