y in the man himself, in the masterful
force that made him what he was. The sandstings of life did not disturb
his confidence in his victorious star, nor did he let fine-spun moral
obligations hamper his predatory career. He had a genius for success in
whatever he undertook, pushing his way to his end with a shrewd, direct
energy that never faltered. She sometimes wondered whether she, too,
like the men he used as tools, was merely a pawn in his game, and her
consent an empty formality conceded to convention. Perhaps he would
marry her even if she did not want to, she told herself, with the
sudden illuminating smile that was one of her chief charms.

But Ridgway's wary eyes, appraising her mood as she came forward to
meet him, read none of this doubt in her frank greeting. Anything more
sure and exquisite than the cultivation Virginia Balfour breathed he
would have been hard put to it to conceive. That her gown and its
accessories seemed to him merely the extension of a dainty personality
was the highest compliment he could pay her charm, and an entirely
unconscious one.

"Have I kept you waiting?" she smiled, giving him her hand.

His answering smile, quite cool and unperturbed, gave the lie to his
words. "For a year, though the almanac called it a week."

"You must have suffered," she told him ironically, with a glance at the
clear color in his good-looking face.

"Repressed emotion," he explained. "May I hope that my suffering has
reached a period?"

They had been sauntering toward a little conservatory at the end of the
large room, but she deflected and brought up at a table on which lay
some books. One of these she picked up and looked at incuriously for a
moment before sweeping them aside. She rested her hands on the table
behind her and leaned back against it, her eyes meeting his fairly.

"You're still of the same mind, are you?" she demanded.

"Oh! very much."

She lifted herself to the table, crossing her feet and dangling them
irresponsibly. "We might as well be comfy while we talk;" and she
indicated, by a nod, a chair.

"Thanks. If you don't mind, I think I'll take it standing."

She did not seem in any hurry to begin, and Ridgway gave evidence of no
desire to hasten her. But presently he said, with a little laugh that
seemed to offer her inclusion in the joke:

"I'm on the anxious seat, you know--waiting to find out whether I'm to
be the happiest man alive."

"You know as much about it as I