he said cheerfully. "If it is the man I
think, he is a better man than I am."

"Yes, he is," she nodded, without the least hesitation.

"I hope you will be happy with him."

"I'm likely to be happy without him."

"Not unless he is a fool."

"Or prefers another lady, as you do."

She settled herself back in the low easy chair, with her hands clasped
behind her head.

"And now I'd like to know why you prefer her to me," she demanded
saucily. "Do you think her handsomer?"

He looked her over from the rippling brown hair to the trim suede
shoes. "No," he smiled; "they don't make them handsomer."

"More intellectual?"

"No."

"Of a better disposition?"

"I like yours, too."

"More charming?"

"I find her so, saving your presence."

"Please justify yourself in detail."

He shook his head, still smiling. "My justification is not to be
itemized. It lies deeper--in destiny, or fate, or whatever one calls
it."

"I see." She offered Markham's verses as an explanation:

"Perhaps we are led and our loves are fated,
And our steps are counted one by one;
Perhaps we shall meet and our souls be mated,
After the burnt-out sun."

"I like that. Who did you say wrote it?"

The immobile butler, as once before, presented a card for her
inspection. Ridgway, with recollections of the previous occasion,
ventured to murmur again: "The fairy prince."

Virginia blushed to her hair, and this time did not offer the card for
his disapproval.

"Shall I congratulate him?" he wanted to know.

The imperious blood came to her cheeks on the instant. The sudden storm
in her eyes warned him better than words.

"I'll be good," he murmured, as Lyndon Hobart came into the room.

His goodness took the form of a speedy departure. She followed him to
the door for a parting fling at him.

"In your automobile you may reach a telegraph-office in about five
minutes. With luck you may be engaged inside of an hour."

"You have the advantage of me by fifty-five minutes," he flung back.

"You ought to thank me on your knees for having saved you a wretched
scene this afternoon," was the best she could say to cover her
discomfiture.

"I do. I do. My thanks are taking the form of leaving you with the
prince."

"That's very crude, sir--and I'm not sure it isn't impertinent."

Miss Balfour was blushing when she returned to Hobart. He mistook the
reason, and she could not very well explain that her blushes were due
to the l