gallant prince there.

Monte had never had a chance. Had he been left as Peter Noyes had been
left, dependent upon himself, he would have done all that Peter had
done, without losing his smile. Marjory must not allow him to lose
that now. His mouth was drooping with such exaggerated melancholy that
she felt something must be done at once. She began to laugh. He
turned quickly.

"You look as if you had lost your last friend," she chided him. "If
talking with Peter Noyes does that to you, I don't think you had better
talk with him any more."

"He's worth more to-day, blind, than I with my two eyes."

"The trouble with Peter is that he can't smile," she answered. "After
all, it would be a sad world if no one were left to smile."

The words brought back to him the phrase she had used at the Normandie:
"I am depending on you to keep me normal."

Here was something right at hand for him to do, and a man's job at
that. He had wanted a chance to play the game, and here it was.
Perhaps the game was not so big as some,--it concerned only her and
him,--but there was a certain added challenge in playing the little
game hard. Besides, the importance of the game was a good deal in the
point of view. If, for him, it was big, that was enough.

As he stood before her now, the demand upon him for all his nerve was
enough to satisfy any man. To assume before her the pose of the
carefree chump that she needed to balance her own nervous fears--to do
this with every muscle in him straining toward her, with the beauty of
her making him dizzy, with hot words leaping for expression to his dry
lips, those facts, after all, made the game seem not so small.

"Where are you going to lunch to-day?" he asked.

"I don't know, Monte," she answered indifferently. "I told Peter he
could come over at ten."

"I see. Want to lunch with him?"

"I don't want to lunch with any one."

"He'll probably expect you. I was going to look at some villas to-day;
but I suppose that's all off."

Her cheeks turned scarlet.

"Yes."

"Then I guess I'll walk to Monte Carlo and lunch there. How about
dinner?"

"If they see us together--"

"Ask them to come along too. You can tell them I'm an old friend. I
am that, am I not?"

"One of the oldest and best," she answered earnestly.

"Then I'll call you up when I come back. Good luck."

With a nod and a smile, he left her.

From the window she watched him out of sight. He did not tu