ollege."

"We use metallurgists in the mill. When you are ready I know father
would be glad to have you."

He flushed at that.

"Thanks," he said. "I'd rather get in, wherever I go, by what I know,
and not who I know."

She felt considerably snubbed, but she knew his curious pride. After a
time, while he threw a stick into the park lake and Jinx retrieved it,
he said:

"What do you do with yourself these days, Lily?"

"Nothing. I've forgotten how to work, I'm afraid. And I'm not very
happy, Willy. I ought to be, but I'm just--not."

"You've learned what it is to be useful," he observed gravely, "and now
it hardly seems worth while just to live, and nothing else. Is that it?"

"I suppose."

"Isn't there anything you can do?"

"They won't let me work, and I hate to study."

There was a silence. Willy Cameron sat on the bench, bent and staring
ahead. Jinx brought the stick, and, receiving no attention, insinuated a
dripping body between his knees. He patted the dog's head absently.

"I have been thinking about the night I went to dinner at your house,"
he said at last. "I had no business to say what I said then. I've got
a miserable habit of saying just what comes into my mind, and I've been
afraid, ever since, that it would end in your not wanting to see me
again. Just try to forget it happened, won't you?"

"I knew it was an impulse, but it made me very proud, Willy."

"All right," he said quietly. "And that's that. Now about your
grandfather. I've had him on my mind, too. He is an old man, and
sometimes they are peculiar. I am only sorry I upset him. And you are to
forget that, too."

In spite of herself she laughed, rather helplessly.

"Is there anything I am to remember?"

He smiled too, and straightened himself, like a man who has got
something off his chest.

"Certainly there is, Miss Cardew. Me. Myself. I want you to know that
I'm around, ready to fetch and carry like Jinx here, and about as
necessary, I suppose. We are a good bit alike, Jinx and I. We're
satisfied with a bone, and we give a lot of affection. You won't mind a
bone now and then?"

His cheerful tone reassured the girl. There was no real hurt, then.

"That's nice of you, you know."

"Well," he said slowly, "you know there are men who prefer a dream to
reality. Perhaps I'm like that. Anyhow, that's enough about me. Do you
know that there is a strike coming?"

"Yes. I ought to tell you, Willy. I think the men are right."