with Alice.

He spoke brusquely. "Someone call a cab, please....I'll send you home,
Miss Frome."

"No, to the hospital," she corrected. "I couldn't go home now without
knowing how he is."

"Very well. Anything to get away from here."

"And you can have your cut attended to there."

"Oh, that's nothing. A basin of cold water is all I need. Here's the
cab, thank heaven."

The girl's gaze followed the automobile up the hill as she waited for
the taxicab to stop. "I do hope he isn't hurt badly," she murmured
piteously.

"Probably he isn't. Just stunned, the doctor seemed to think. Anyhow it
was an unavoidable accident."

The eyes of the young woman kindled. "I'll never forget the way you
jumped to save him. It was splendid."

James flushed with pleasure. "Nonsense. I merely pushed him aside."

"You merely risked your life for his. A bagatelle--don't mention it,"
the girl mocked.

Farnum nodded, the old warmth for her in his eyes. "All right, I'll take
all the praise you want to give me. It's been a good while since you
have thought I deserved any."

Alice looked out of the window in a silence that appeared to accuse him.

"Yet once"--She felt in his fine voice the vibration of feeling--"once
we were friends. We met on the common ground of--of the spirit," he
risked.

Her eyes came round to meet his. "Is it my fault that we are not still
friends?"

"I don't know. Something has come between us. What is it?"

"If you don't know I can't tell you."

"I think I know." He folded his handkerchief again to find a spot
unstained. "You wanted me to fit into some ideal of me you had
formed. Am I to blame because I can't do it? Isn't the fault with your
austerity? I've got to follow my own convictions--not Jeff's, not even
yours. Life's a fight, and it's every man for himself. He has to work
out his own salvation in his own way. Nobody can do it for him. The
final test is his success or failure. I'm going to succeed."

"Are you?" The compassion of her look he could not understand. "But how
shall we define success?"

"It's getting power and wielding it."

"But doesn't it depend on how one wields it?"

"Yes. It must be made to produce big results. Now my idea of a
successful man is your uncle, Joe Powers."

"And my idea of one is your cousin, Jefferson Farnum."

The young man sat up. "You're not seriously telling me that you think
Jeff is successful as compared with Joe Powers?"

"Yes. In my opinion he is