overtook me.

"Mr. Paine," she said, "I am very grateful for your kindness. Both for
what you have done tonight and for your help the other afternoon. Thank
you."

She held out her hand. I took it, scarcely knowing that I did so.

"Thank you," she said, again. I murmured something or other and went
out. As I stepped from the porch I heard Victor's voice.

"Well, by Jove!" he exclaimed. "Mabel!"

I looked back. He was standing by the door. She went past him without
replying or even looking at him. From the automobile I heard smothered
chuckles and exclamations. The butler closed the door.

I walked home as fast as I could. Dorinda was waiting up for me. What
she said when she saw the ruin of my Sunday suit had better not be
repeated. She was still saying it when I took my lamp and went up to
bed.

CHAPTER IX

The strawberry festival and the "tempest" were, of course, the subjects
most discussed at the breakfast table next morning. Lute monopolized
the conversation, a fact for which I was thankful, for it enabled me
to dodge Dorinda's questions as to my own adventures. I did not care to
talk about the latter. My feelings concerning them were curiously mixed.
Was I glad or sorry that Fate had chosen me to play once more the role
of rescuer of a young female in distress? That my playing of the role
had altered my standing in Mabel Colton's mind I felt reasonably sure.
Her words at parting with me rang true. She was grateful, and she had
shaken hands with me. Doubtless she would tell her father the whole
story and he, too, in common decency, would be grateful to me for
helping his daughter. But, after all, did I care for gratitude from
that family? And what form would that gratitude take? Would Colton,
like Victor Carver, offer to pay me for my services? No, hardly that, I
thought. He was a man of wide experience and, if he did offer payment,
it would be in some less crude form than a five dollar bill.

But I did not want payment in any form. I did not want condescension and
patronizing thanks. I did not want anything--that was it. Up to now, the
occupants of the big house and I had been enemies, open and confessed. I
had, so far as possible, kept out of their way and hoped they would keep
out of mine. But now the situation was more complicated. I did not know
what to expect. Of course there was no chance of our becoming friends.
The difference in social position, as they reckoned it, made that too
ridiculou