nt were overbalanced by her American appreciation of
chivalry, however inspired. "The Censor" had gone for years unpunished;
his coarse wit being aimed at every one who had come into social
prominence. So pungent and vindictive was his pen that other men feared
him, and there were many who lived in glass houses in terror of a
fusilade. Brewster's prompt and sufficient action had checked the
pernicious attacks, and he became a hero among men and women. After
that night there was no point to "The Censor's" pen. Monty's first
qualms of apprehension were swept away when Colonel Drew himself hailed
him the morning after the encounter and, in no unmeasured terms,
congratulated him upon his achievement, assuring him that Barbara and
Mrs. Drew approved, although they might lecture him as a matter of form.

But on this morning, as he lay in his bed, Monty was thinking deeply
and painfully. He was confronted by a most embarrassing condition and
he was discussing it soberly with himself. "I've never told her," he
said to himself, "but if she doesn't know my feeling she is not as
clever as I think. Besides, I haven't time to make love to her now. If
it were any other girl I suppose I'd have to, but Babs, why, she must
understand. And yet--damn that Duke!"

In order to woo her properly he would be compelled to neglect financial
duties that needed every particle of brain-energy at his command. He
found himself opposed at the outset by a startling embarrassment, made
absolutely clear by the computations of the night before. The last four
days of indifference to finance on one side, and pampering the heart on
the other, had proved very costly. To use his own expression, he had
been "set back" almost eight thousand dollars. An average like that
would be ruinous.

"Why, think of it," he continued. "For each day sacrificed to Barbara I
must deduct something like twenty-five hundred dollars. A long campaign
would put me irretrievably in the hole; I'd get so far behind that a
holocaust couldn't put me even. She can't expect that of me, yet girls
are such idiots about devotion, and of course she doesn't know what a
heavy task I'm facing. And there are the others--what will they do
while I am out of the running? I cannot go to her and say, 'Please, may
I have a year's vacation? I'll come back next September.' On the other
hand, I shall surely neglect my business if she expects me to compete.
What pleasure shall I get out of the seven millio