round him. "Steve won't believe that I've been serious, will he?
Now, daddy dear, please go 'way and let me dress, for I'm 'way late."

She kissed him almost patronizingly and he tiptoed out of her room,
rather glad to get into his own domain--the majestic library with its
partially arranged wedding gifts.

"We're doing ourselves proud," he remarked to his sister, who had been
rearranging them.

"What I told Beatrice this morning. Only she is all nerves. She can't
enjoy anything--it will be a relief to me, Mark, as well as a loss,
when it is over."

Her brother viewed her with a quizzical expression. Like the rest of
the world his sister never fooled him. But like all supermen there was
one human being in whom all his trust was centred, and who very often
thus brought about his defeat. In his case, as with Steve O'Valley, it
chanced to be Beatrice.

Regarding her both men--merciless with their associates and dubbed as
fish-blooded coroners by their enemies--were like gullible children
following a lovely and willful Pied Piperess. But Mark's sister with
her vanities and fibs irritated and amused him by turns. Perhaps he
resented her sharing this material triumph instead of the tired-faced
woman in the churchyard.

"Do you remember the time you did the beadwork for the head
carpenter's wife and when she paid you for it you spent the dollar for
liquid rouge? Todd was so mad he wouldn't speak for a week," he
chuckled, unkindly.

"Don't say such things! Think how it would embarrass Bea. Of course I
don't remember. Neither do you."

"Oh, don't I? What's the harm recalling old times? I remember when you
tried to make Todd a winter overcoat and he said it looked most as
good as a deep-sea diver's outfit. My Hannah nearly died a-laughing."

Fortunately Steve appeared, flourishing Beatrice's corsage by way of a
greeting.

"Aha, the conquerer comes. My dear lad, your lady love has just ousted
me from her room, she'll be down presently. Belle, Steve and I are
going into the den to smoke."

"I'm trying to look as amiable as possible, but I wish fuss and
feathers were not the mode." Steve smiled his sweetest at Aunt Belle
and then took Constantine's arm. "The cave-man style of clubbing
one's chosen into unconsciousness and strolling at leisure through the
jungle with her wasn't half bad. By the way, I did sell the Allandale
man to-day, and the razor-factory stock is going to boom instead of
flatten out--I'm sure of it