good they have all been to me? You know
what nonsense it was for Allan--he tells me I can't call my own brother
'Gerard'--what nonsense it was for him to suggest that I ever could
blame anyone but myself for what I had to stand?"

"I know you feel it so, Corrie."

"Then, I want to say there was only you, Other Fellow, who _never_ hurt
or made it harder."

"Even--Allan?"

"I think there never was a man so generous as Allan--but, only you. I,"
he drew a breath of inexpressible content, "I see a bully good life
ahead, but I don't see any woman in it, unless I find one like you. And
from what I overheard Allan saying, just now when I passed you both at
the alcove, he's secured the only perfect angel-girl----"

Laughing, warmly flushed, she put her hand across his lips.

But it was that evening, in the glowing richness and repose of the
dining-room in the pink marble villa, now reinvested with the dignity of
a home, that the core of the late situation was touched.

Once more Allan Gerard was intent upon the study of Flavia's young
beauty as she sat near him in the lace gown, this time with his ring
flaunting conquest on her fragile hand. Mr. Rose was leaning back and
idly watching the ice dissolve in his glass, when Corrie broke the
pause, resting his arms on the table and lifting his gay, mirthful face
to the man behind his chair:

"Take away those oysters, Perkins! I want my soup right off, and a lot
of it. I'm about starved----" He stopped, himself struck by the words.

The evoked recollections of that last dinner together were too much.
Mr. Rose carefully put the glass down, his strong jaw setting. Flavia's
large startled eyes flashed wet as they went to her brother.

"Corrie, Corrie, I can understand how you began," escaped Gerard
impulsively. "But how could you carry it on month after month?"

The ruddy color ran up to Corrie's forehead, he looked down at the
table, sobered.

"It didn't take me long to see I made an awful bungle of things," he
confessed, half-shy and hesitant. "And it got worse and worse as I saw
what I had done to you people. Yet I'd given my word. I guess you'll
understand a lot more than I can say; as Allan will understand, now, why
I couldn't help knocking down that tramp who wanted money because I
belonged in prison and wasn't there. It was all too much for me to think
out! But--isn't there something said about a fellow who puts his hand to
the plough not taking it off? I used to say