ew-place or look-out, I guess), built at one end of the property that
fronts to the sea?"

"I--rather think they did mention something of the kind," said Denin.
The first time he had ever seen Barbara, at a dance soon after she was
presented, she had happened to speak of the Mirador. It was a miniature
house which her father had built for her at her favorite view point, as
a birthday surprise, when she was ten. There was an "upstairs and a
downstairs," a bath, and a "tiny, tiny kitchen" where she had been
supposed to do her own cooking. In the sitting-room she had had lessons
with her governess. The one upstairs room, with its wonderful view of
the bay and the islands, had been turned into a bedroom for her, when
she had scarlet fever and had to be isolated with a nurse. She had
"loved getting well there, and lying in her hammock on the balcony with
curtains of roses."

"Old man Drake had the smart notion of putting on a couple more rooms
in a wing at the back, and offering it to his son and his son's bride,"
the driver of the car was explaining, over the motor's cheap clatter.
"But while the work was going on, the new beams caught fire one night
(I guess some tramp could tell why) and the whole addition and a bit of
the original burnt down. Just then the son changed his plans anyhow,
and decided to go into business with his wife's folks in the East. That
sort of sickened the old man, so he let the Mirador fall into rack and
ruin; and now he spends about three quarters of his time in Boston with
the son. I guess he's sorry he was in such a hurry to buy the Fay
place. Anyways, he won't spend money on the Mirador, but rather than it
should stay the way it is, he'll sell it in its present condition with
enough ground to make a garden. The thing looks like a burnt bird's
nest--except for the flowers, and the house ain't much bigger than a
baby doll's house. I suppose it wouldn't suit you, would it?"

"Perhaps it might," answered Denin, trying to speak calmly. But in his
heart he meant to have Barbara's Mirador if it cost him every penny he
had left from his advance on "The War Wedding." It was almost as if, to
atone for taking herself out of his life, Barbara had given him this
dear plaything of her childhood to remember her by.

"Well, you'll be able to make up your mind," said his guide, slowing
down the rattletrap car. "Here we are at the Fay place, now--or the
Drake place, as maybe I ought to call it--and there's the