very strong."

Barbara refused to rise at the implication that the strong young man was
also ready and even eager to die for her. "Tell me more about
Blizzard," she said.

"He's one of the half-dozen men in the city that we would like to have
an eye on night and day. We want him."

"Oh," she said, "then you are not here entirely on my account? It is
also your business to be here?"

He nodded, not altogether pleased with the turn the matter had taken.

"In that case," she said, "I have no wish to stand in your way. But--I
don't propose to be a cat's-paw. You may sit in Bubbles's room if you
like, but I won't have you on your hands and knees at the studio door
listening at the key-hole. That must be understood."

The young man flushed with righteous anger. "You don't _look_" he said,
"as if you could say a thing like that to a fellow."

Instantly, and almost humbly, she begged his pardon.

"Then I may come to-morrow?" he asked.

"And the next day," said Barbara. "And, by the way, what is your name?"

"Harry," he said.

"Harry what?"

A look very much like pathos came into his handsome eyes. "I want to be
honest with you," he said. "I don't own any other name. I call myself
West. But I've no right to it. I don't know who my father was or what
he was."

"You don't have to explain," said Barbara. "I think you would have been
quite within your rights in saying that your name was West and letting
it go at that."

It was not her intention to receive Mr. West's confidences either at
this time or any other. And so, of course, ten minutes later, as she
drove uptown, she was "dying" to know all that there was to be known
about him. He had gone downstairs with her, and put her into her cab. He
might have been a prince with a passion for good manners. He seemed to
her wonderfully graceful and at ease, in all that he did.

XIII

Dr. Ferris smiled tolerantly, and said to the footman who had brought
the card: "I shall be very glad to see Mr. Allen." And he kept on
smiling after the footman had gone. The interview which he foresaw was
of that kind which not only did him honor but amused him. Wilmot Allen
would not be the first young man to whom the rich surgeon had had the
pleasure of putting embarrassing questions: "What can you tell me of
your past life and habits?" "Can you support my daughter in the way to
which she has always been accustomed?" etc., etc.

But Wilmot Allen did not at once ask permission