manager as Miss Catherine Comstock, would not be
left hanging on the bough within his reach for long. A year's delay
would almost surely be fatal, and it was uncertain whether he could get
away before the next summer from his important responsibilities at the
Washington Trust Company. So haste must be the word.

That he should reason thus about a delicate matter of sentiment betrays
not merely the man's coarse grain, but the inferiority of the commercial
experience in making an accomplished lover. He had been trained in the
"new school" of rapid finance to complete large transactions on the
moment, never letting small uncertainties or delays interfere with his
purposes. It was really not essential to the working of the financial
system--even for the salvation of the Washington Trust Company--that Mr.
Ashly Crane should turn up at his desk on the morning of the
twenty-sixth instanter. It might just as well have been the thirty-first
or even the middle of the next month--or, if he should have the good
luck to gain the heart and hand of the heiress, never at all! But Mr.
Ashly Crane was neither of the temperament nor of the age to play the
sentimental game thus desperately. He was altogether too much an
American to let his love-making interfere with his business schedule.
(Besides, there was not another swift steamer sailing for New York for
three weeks.)

So he sighed, and when the cab shot into the umbrageous dimness of old
trees he took the girl's hand in his. She made no attempt to withdraw
her hand. Probably Adelle was more frightened by this first experience
in the eternal situation than the man was, and that is saying a good
deal. She took refuge in her usual defense against life and its many
perplexities, which was silence, permitting the banker to press her
captive hand for several moments while the cab tossed on the uneven road
and Crane was summoning his nerve for the next step. Her heart beat a
little faster, and she wondered what was going to happen.

That was the man's attempt to encircle her waist with his free arm. In
this maneuver Adelle did not assist him: instead, she pushed herself
back against the cushion so firmly that it made it a difficult
engineering feat to obtain possession of her figure. By this time his
face was close to hers, and he was stammering incoherently such words
as--"Adelle" ... "Dearest" ... "Love" ... etc. But we will spare the
reader Mr. Ashly Crane's crude imitation of ardor. A