stretch of road without the suggestion of a stirring breeze. One
cannot chain youth, romance, and Irish-Basque ancestry together and
let them go breakneck speed without glorious and eternal memories of
the feat.

Mary realized this--even though she might pretend ignorance of the
fact. She had reckoned with it before she gave Steve her word. Perhaps
it, too, had been a factor in stripping off the mask of commercial nun
and showing him the Gorgeous-Girl propensities. Nothing would content
him so much as to think of someone dependent upon him, make him
shoulder responsibility, surround him in a halo of hero worship. Even
if they both knew this to be a lovely rosy joke--aide-de-camp of
romance, which even the most practical American woman will not
forgo--Mary had been wise in telling him the truth. The only time
women do at all well in fibbing is to each other. Besides, there is a
vast difference between fibs and rosy jokes!

Steve had earned this, therefore it would be his for all time. And
though he felt youth had gone from him--the optimistic swashbuckling
youth which conquered all in his pathway--approaching middle age was
good to have, and he rejoiced that this mad noonday was over. As he
looked out at the simple grounds and thought of how sensible Mary was,
and how sensible was the colour of their modest car, and a hundred
similar facts--there crossed his mind a vision of the Gorgeous Girl
like a frail, exotic jungle flower, clad in copper-coloured tulle with
tiny rusty satin slippers and surrounded by a bodyguard of the
season's best dancers.

"Why, Stevuns," he almost fancied her light, gay voice saying, "aren't
you funny!" Then the tiny rusty satin slippers tripped away to the
latest of waltz tunes.

Well, that was at an end. Perhaps even to Mary, who had come
downstairs, delighted at finding extra shelf room, Steve would never
confide these fleeting visions that would cross his mind from time to
time; also his banished boy heart. Mary would grow a trifle matronly
of figure, become addicted to severe striped silks, perhaps insist on
meatless days--and smokeless rooms, for all she said not just now. She
would dominate a trifle and be on committees, raise a great hue and
cry as to the right schools for the children. But she would always be
his Mary Faithful, gray-eyed and incurably honest and loving him
without pause and without thought of her own splendid self. Truly he
was a fortunate man, for though there is