me; he had saved her, if only for the moment. If there were
further salvation, it lay in Mark King. And so she came presently to a
thought that made her sit bolt upright, that set her heart racing, that
brought a new look into her eyes. Just now it had seemed so clear that
only one thing could save her from clacking diatribes, from torture
under the tongues of Ernestines and Mabels and daily newspapers--
marriage with Gratton. But Gratton was gone and Mark King was here! If
she married King! The "judge" was still here. King was her father's
friend; between men like them there was nothing which would be denied
when friendship asked. What if she went to King, saying to him
straightforwardly: "Thus and such is my predicament. For my sake--for
the sake of papa's daughter and hence for papa's sake no less--will you
go through the form of marrying me? I shall be no burden; it will make
no difference in your life. For to-morrow I will go back to San
Francisco and you need never see me again. You can let me have a
divorce; you will have lost nothing; I shall have been saved everything.
Will you many me, Mark King?"

* * * * *

"Gloria!" King was calling. "Will you come down now? Everything's
ready."

"Coming," answered Gloria. "Right away."

She glanced in her glass as she went out; the colour which had played
hide-and-seek all day was again tinting her cheeks a delicate rose. What
were fatigue and hunger when hope attended them?

But it happened that Gloria's impulse, which was at least honest and
frank, was for a little held in abeyance, and thus it came about that
she lost the opportunity to appear before Mark King at a critical moment
as being straight-dealing, direct, and outspoken. She thanked him with
her eyes for the lunch he had set forth for her; she gave him a quick
little smile as he waited on her. He poured the coffee, gave her milk
and sugar, brought the hot things from the stove. And all of the time
there was in his eyes a look which he had no suspicion was there, the
look of a man's adoration.

"He will do whatever I ask him to do," something sang within her.

"Won't you sit down with me, Mark?" she smiled at him.

And there, while one Gloria had determined to indulge in plain talk, the
other Gloria came forward obliquely, demanding the place which had
always been hers when it was a case of man and girl together. The smile
was the smile of a coquette; it intoxicated; it ma