After a constrained silence, "I really don't need anyone to stop here
with me," she said to him, as if she had been thinking of it and not of
the situation between them, "but I'll get Stella Wilmot and her brother."

"Arden?" said Dory, doubtfully. "I know he's all right in some ways, and
he has stopped drinking since he got the place at the bank. But--"

"If we show we have confidence in him," replied Adelaide, "I think it
will help him."

"Very well," said Dory. "Besides, it isn't easy to find people of the
sort you'd be willing to have, who can leave home and come here."

Adelaide colored as she smiled. "Perhaps that _was_ my reason, rather
than helping him," she said.

Dory flushed. "Oh, I didn't mean to insinuate that!" he protested, and
checked himself from saying more. In their mood each would search the
other's every word for a hidden thrust, and would find it.

The constraint between them, which thus definitely entered the stage of
deep cleavage where there had never been a joining, persisted until the
parting. Since the wedding he had kissed her but once--on her arrival
from Europe. Then, there was much bustle of greeting from others, and
neither had had chance to be self-conscious. When they were at the
station for his departure, it so happened that no one had come with them.
As the porter warned them that the train was about to move, they shook
hands and hesitated, blushing and conscious of themselves and of
spectators, "Good-by," stammered Dory, with a dash at her cheek.

"Good-by," she murmured, making her effort at the same instant.

The result was a confusion of features and hat brims that threw them
into a panic, then into laughter, and so made the second attempt easy
and successful. It was a real meeting of the lips. His arm went round
her, her hand pressed tenderly on his shoulder, and he felt a trembling
in her form, saw a sudden gleam of light leap into and from her eyes.
And all in that flash the secret of his mistake in managing his love
affair burst upon him.

"Good-by, Dory--dear," she was murmuring, a note in her voice like the
shy answer of a hermit thrush to the call of her mate.

"All aboard!" shouted the conductor, and the wheels began to move.

"Good-by--good-by," he stammered, his blood surging through his head.

It came into her mind to say, "I care for you more than I knew." But his
friend the conductor was thrusting him up the steps of the car. "I wish I
had said it," th