of earshot in a far corner of the veranda, the face she
turned to him wore nothing on it but an expression of lovely and tender
pain that he found much harder to contend with than anything she could
possibly have said.

Contritely he proffered his profound apologies and regrets. But when
all was said and done, it boiled down to the same old lame duck of an
excuse that was yet the simple and shameful truth.

"I forgot all about it."

Like Gay under similar circumstances, she was infuriated by the
combined flimsiness and sincerity of the plea. But, unlike Gay, she
was too clever to give herself away and ruin her plans by an outburst
of indignation. She only fixed her sad and lovely dark eyes on his and
said quietly:

"Is that all you have to say to me, Lundi? With everyone laughing at
my humiliation and disappointment--my foolishness!"

He flushed at the use of his name, the tone of her voice, the inference
in her words.

"I am most frightfully sorry," he repeated, deeply embarrassed. "It
was unutterably caddish of me. I can never forgive myself, or expect
you to forgive me."

"I think you know by now that I can forgive you anything," she
answered, in a low voice.

His embarrassment increased.

"I'm not worth a second thought from any woman," he asseverated firmly.

"But if I think you are?" There was a little break in her voice, and
suddenly she put out her hands toward him. "If I cannot help----"

"Mrs. Hading," he interposed hastily, "you don't know what you are
saying. I am a blackguard--a scamp, unfit to touch a woman's hand."

"Let me be judge of that," she said.

"I have not even told you everything about tonight. When you hear what
has happened, you won't want to speak to me again." She suddenly took
out a little lace handkerchief and began to cry. He stared at her with
haggard eyes. "Do you know that I have killed a man tonight?" he said
sombrely.

That gave her pause. Her nerves went taut and her face rigid behind
the scrap of lace. Even _her_ cold soul balked at murder, and her
plans of mingled revenge and self-advancement rocked a little. She
looked at him direct now, with eyes full of horrified enquiry.

"I did not mean to distress you with the story," he said. "But I
struck a man over the card-table, and they say he is dead."

It seemed to her that she caught a sound of relief, even triumph in the
statement--almost as though he was glad to have such a reason for
stemmin