dent or choice, not by nature's decree.

He wondered if she, at least, would pay him the compliment of
recognition. She made no sign of it as she approached. As she passed he
lifted his hat.

"Isn't this Miss Phoebe Carew?"

Wakefield women were not in danger from strangers' advances; she paused
without alarm and answered with an inquiring smile:

"Yes."

"You don't remember me?"

She studied him. "I seem to, and yet--"

"I'm Luke Shelby."

"Luke Shelby! Oh yes! Why, how do you do?" She gave him her beautiful
hand, but she evidently lacked the faintest inkling of his identity.
Time had erased from recollection the boy who used to take her sliding
on his sled, the boy who used to put on her skates for her, the boy who
used to take her home on his grocery-wagon sometimes, pretending that he
was going her way, just for the benizon of her radiant companionship,
her shy laughter.

"I used to live here," he said, ashamed to be so forgettable. "My mother
was--my stepfather was A. J. Stacom, who kept the hardware-store."

"Oh yes," she said; "they moved away some years ago, didn't they?"

"Yes; after mother died my stepfather went back to Council Bluffs, where
we came from in the first place. I used to go to school with you,
Phoebe--er--Miss Carew. Then I drove Spate's delivery-wagon for a
while before I went East."

"Oh yes," she said; "I think I remember you very well. I'm very glad to
see you again, Mr.--Mr. Stacom."

"Shelby," he said, and he was so heartsick that he merely lifted his hat
and added, "I'm glad to see you looking so well."

"You're looking well, too," she said, and smiled the gracious, empty
smile one visits on a polite stranger. Then she went her way. In his
lonely eyes she moved with a goddess-like grace that made clouds of the
uneven pavements where he stumbled as he walked with reverted gaze.

He went back to the hotel lonelier than before, in a greater loneliness
than Ulysses felt ending his Odyssey in Ithaca. For, at least, Ulysses
was remembered by an old dog that licked his hand.

Once in his room, Shelby sank into a patent rocker of most uncomfortable
plush. The inhospitable garishness of a small-town hotel's luxury
expelled him from the hateful place, and he resumed the streets, taking,
as always, determination from rebuff and vowing within himself:

"I'll make 'em remember me. I'll make the name of Shelby the biggest
name in town."

On the main street he found one lone, bobta