fer under the bed.

"Stop pretending!" cried Griswold. "I won't have it!"

"I don't understand," said Miss Proctor. She spoke in the same cold
voice, only now it had dropped several degrees nearer freezing. "I
don't think you understand yourself. You won't have what?"

Griswold now was frightened, and that made him reckless. Instead of
withdrawing he plunged deeper.

"I won't have you two pretending you don't know each other," he
blustered. "I won't stand being fooled! If you're going to deceive me
before we're married, what will you do after we're married?"

Charles emitted a howl. It was made up of disgust, amazement, and
rage. Fiercely he turned upon Miss Proctor.

"Let me have him!" he begged.

"No!" almost shouted Miss Proctor. Her tone was no longer cold--it was
volcanic. Her eyes, flashing beautifully, were fixed upon Griswold.
She made a gesture as though to sweep Charles out of the room. "Please
go!" she demanded. "This does not concern you."

Her tone was one not lightly to be disregarded. Charles disregarded it.

"It does concern me," he said briskly. "Nobody can insult a woman in
my house--you, least of all!" He turned upon the greatest catch in
America. "Griswold," he said, "I never met this lady until I came into
this room; but I know her, understand her, value her better than you'd
understand her if you knew her a thousand years!"

Griswold allowed him to go no farther.

"I know this much," he roared: "she was in love with the man who took
those photographs, and that man was in love with her! And you're that
man!"

"What if I am!" roared back Charles. "Men always have loved her; men
always will--because she's a fine, big, wonderful woman! You can't see
that, and you never will. You insulted her! Now I'll give you time to
apologize for that, and then I'll order you out of this house! And if
Miss Proctor is the sort of girl I think she is, she'll order you out
of it, too!"

Both men swung toward Miss Proctor. Her eyes were now smiling
excitedly. She first turned them upon Charles, blushing most
becomingly.

"Miss Proctor," she said, "hopes she is the sort of girl Mr. Cochran
thinks she is." She then turned upon the greatest catch in America.
"You needn't wait, Chester," she said, "not even to apologize."

Chester Griswold, alone in his car, was driven back to New York. On the
way he invented a story to explain why, at the eleventh hour, he had
jilted Aline Proctor; but