rides and walks with Beatrice were rare events now because he was
so keen on the business of looking for his Colorado protegee. He gave
them up reluctantly. Every time they went out together into the open
Miss Whitford became more discontented with the hothouse existence she
was living. He felt there was just a chance that if he were constant
enough, he might sweep her off her feet into that deeper current of
life that lay beyond the social shallows. But he had to sacrifice this
chance. He was not going to let Kitty's young soul be ship-wrecked if
he could help it, and he had an intuition that she was not wise enough
nor strong enough to keep off the rocks alone.

A part of his distress lay in the coolness of his imperious young
friend who lived on the Drive. Beatrice resented his divided
allegiance, though her own was very much in that condition. Clay and
she had from the first been good comrades. No man had ever so deeply
responded to her need of friendship. All sorts of things he understood
without explanations. A day with him was one that brought the deep
content of happiness. That, no doubt, she explained to herself, was
because he was such a contrast to the men of cramped lives she knew.
He was a splendid tonic, but of course one did not take tonics except
occasionally.

Yet though Beatrice intended to remain heart-whole, she wanted to be
the one woman in Clay's life until she released him. It hurt her
vanity, and perhaps something deeper than her vanity, that such a girl
as she conceived Kitty Mason to be should have first claim on the time
she had come to consider her own. She made it plain to him, in the
wordless way expert young women have at command, that she did not mean
to share with him such odd hours as he chose to ask for. He had to
come when she wanted him or not at all. Without the name of Kitty
having been mentioned, he was given to understand that if he wished to
remain in the good graces of Beatrice Whitford he must put the
cigarette girl out of his mind.

For all his good nature Clay was the last man in the world to accept
dictation of this sort. He would go through with anything he started,
and especially where it was a plain call of duty. Beatrice might like
it or not as she pleased. He would make his own decisions as to his
conduct.

He did.

Bee was furious at him. She told herself that there was either a weak
streak in him or a low one, else he would not be so obsesse