e would-be lover's campaign the
more difficult. In fact, her very frankness and candor made it
impossible, and finally disarmed him altogether, leaving him feeling
very much ashamed of himself. Stafford was not a scoundrel at heart.
He had gone into the game just for the sport, as many men of his class
and opportunities had done before him, carelessly, thoughtlessly, and
without fully realizing that he was committing a crime. And now that
she had gone through the fire unscathed, he was more in love with her
than ever. What a fool, what an unspeakable cad he had been to even
think of her in that way!

Then another thought occurred to him. The girl whom he could never
have won for a mistress might well be worth making his wife. Why not
marry her? The idea had never entered his head, but it was not so
preposterous as it at first seemed. He had jested with Hadley about
looking for a wife, and at times had even thought seriously about
getting married. Yet it was not a thing to be undertaken lightly. As
head of a big railroad system, he had a certain position to keep up.
This girl was poor--an obscure stenographer. There was no telling what
objectionable relatives she might have. When a man marries, he marries
his wife's family! How society would laugh! Well, what if it did? He
had boasted to Hadley that he defied the conventions. What did he care
for society? There was many a woman in society who, if the walls of
alcoves could talk and it came to a show-down on conduct, would not
dare hold up her head in presence of Virginia Blaine. He certainly
liked the girl well enough to marry her. He could hardly say that he
loved her. One does not love at first sight, no matter what the dime
novelists say--and what, perhaps, was more important, he respected
her. Could every man say as much of the woman he married? Love would
come later, he had no doubt of that, and after all, he thought to
himself, it was not so much a question of "should he marry her?" as of
"would she marry him?"

Once he made up his mind, Robert Stafford was not the kind of man to
let the grass grow under his feet. He started on a new campaign--an
honorable campaign, this time, on which he was willing to stake his
happiness. He was puzzled, at first, how to go about it. A clever way,
he thought, would be to get her more interested in himself, in his
home. He would ask her to visit his Riverside house and see his art
treasures, his pictures. Of course, it was not l