with some doughnuts for himself
and a piece of cake for her.

"This looked so good I thought you might like it," he said, as he
placed it on the arm of her chair. "It's so much easier to talk when
eating. I want to hear more about this scheme of yours for marrying me
off."

"It isn't exactly my suggestion."

"You proposed it a minute ago."

"All I said was that if you mean to get married, you'd better do it
right away and be done with it."

"During my vacation?"

She brought her lips together.

"Yes."

"Do you know, that rather appeals to me," he answered thoughtfully.

She turned aside her head.

"It's the only sensible thing," she assured him.

"It would give a man a chance to settle down and attend to business."

"And give his wife a chance to help him."

"By Jove, I'm going to propose that to Frances the day she lands!" he
exclaimed.

He was finishing his last doughnut. Miss Winthrop rose. Once outside,
she could breathe freely. She said:--

"Her--her name is Frances?"

"Frances Stuyvesant," he nodded.

"When do you expect her home?"

"The first of September."

"Then you'd better put in a bid to have your vacation the first two
weeks in September," she advised. "Business will begin to pick up
right after that, and Farnsworth will need you."

CHAPTER XXIII

LOOKING AHEAD

It was now the first week in August. If she could sustain his interest
in the project for three weeks and get him married in the fourth, then
she could settle back into the routine of her life. It was the only
possible way of straightening out the tangle. Once he was safely
married, that was the end. Their relations would cease automatically.
The conventions would attend to that. As a married man he, of course,
could not lunch with her or spend Saturday afternoons in the park with
her, or Sunday in the country with her, or mid-week evenings anywhere
with her. He would be exiled from her life as effectively as if he
himself should go to Europe. In fact, the separation would be even
more effective, because there would not be any possible hope of his
coming back. For her it would be almost as if he died.

Back in her room that night, Miss Winthrop saw all these things quite
clearly. And she saw that this was the only way. In no other way
could she remain in the office of Carter, Rand & Seagraves. If he did
not marry in September,--she had applied that afternoon for her own
vacation to parallel his,--then she mu