n' man.' That rankled, you see."

"What did you say?"

"I said: 'Yes, you are, too. No decent man would act as you've been
acting, unless he was drunk. And probably,' I said, 'you've been brewing
it in the cellar, and selling it to the neighbors.'"

"That was a bliffer."

"It was. I had an idea he might drop dead in his tracks."

"That all he said?"

"Yes. Oh, no, there was one other thing. He asked me if I were saved."

"What did you say?"

"Told him not to be a fool."

Raven lifted up his voice and laughed.

They were opposite his own house, and Dick, who had just opened the
front door, heard him.

"Oh," said Dick icily, when they came up to him. "So that's where you
were. Uncle Jack"--for now he saw he had just cause for anger--"I'll
thank you to let my hat alone."

"Yes, Dick," said Raven meekly. "But I saw it and it's such a dandy
hat."

"Don't be rude to your only uncle," said Nan.

She was slipping off her coat and Raven judged, seeing her so calm, that
her evening pleased her.

"Mother in there?" Raven inquired of Dick.

He had hung up the pilfered coat and hat, with great nicety of care, in
the hall closet.

"No," said Dick. "She's gone to bed."

The implication was that she shouldn't have been allowed to get bored
enough to go to bed.

"I'm going, too," said Nan. She gave her hand to Raven. "'Night,
Rookie." Then she apparently remembered Dick, and shook her head at him.
"Silly!" she commented. "Nobody'll love you if you behave like that."

Dick did not answer. He turned about and went into the library, and
Raven following, after he had seen Nan at the top of the stairs, found
him reading a day-old paper with a studied absorption it was evident he
was far from feeling.

XVIII

Dick tossed the paper aside and turned upon Raven who, taking his chair
at the hearth, had bent to throw on a handful of light wood: the sticks
that wake and change a room so completely that they might almost lighten
the mood of the man their burning plays upon.

"Look here," said Dick, "you put the devil into Nan. What do you do it
for?"

Raven looked up at him in a complete surprise.

"No, I don't. The devil? Nan's got less to do with the devil than
anybody you and I ever saw. She's kept herself unspotted. She's a
child."

This last he said of sudden intent for, having noted its effect on
Milly, he wondered how it would strike Dick.

"Oh, no, she isn't," said Dick, with bitterness. "Unspott