will not be angry. You never can tell what woman will or
won't do."

An old and forgotten bit of mental machinery began to set up a
ditter-datter in Cutty's brain. Marry Kitty? Make a settlement, and
then give her her freedom? Rot! Girls of Kitty's calibre were above
such expediencies. He tried to resurrect his interest in the drums of
jeopardy, which he might now appropriate without having to shanghai his
conscience. The clitter-clatter smothered it; indeed, this new racket
upset and demoralized the well-ordered machinery of his thinking
apparatus as applied daily. Marry Kitty!

"I'm old enough to be her father."

"What's that to do with it so long as convention is satisfied?"

Cutty was so shaken and confused that he missed the tragic irony of the
voice. All the receptive avenues to his brain seemed to have shut down
suddenly. He was conscious only of the clitter-clatter. Marry Kitty!

"You can't settle money on her," went on Hawksley, "without scandal. You
can't offer her anything without offending her. And you can't let her go
to rust without having her bit of good times."

"Utterly impossible," said Cutty, to the idea rather than to his
tormentor.

"Oh, of course, if you have an affair--No, God forgive me, I don't
mean that! I'm a damned ingrate! But your bringing up those stones and
knocking off the top of all the misery piling up in my heart! I was
only trying to hurt you, hurt myself, everybody. Please have a little
patience with me, for I've come out of hell!" Hawksley turned aside his
head.

"Buck up," said Cutty, his blazing wrath dropping to a smoulder. "I'll
fetch those togs."

What had the boy done to fill him with such tragic bitterness? Was he
Two-Hawks? Cutty dismissed this doubt instantly. He recalled the episode
of the boy's conduct when confronted by the photograph of his mother.
No human being could be a play actor in such a moment. The boy's emotion
had been deep and real. Cutty recognized the fact that he had become as
a block in the middle of a Chinese puzzle; only Fate could move him to
his appointed place.

But offer marriage to Kitty so that he could provide for her!
Mechanically he rummaged his clothes press for the suit he was to take
to Hawksley. Well, why not? He could settle five thousand a year on her.
His departure for the Balkans--he might be gone a year or more--could be
legally construed as desertion. And with pretty clothes and freedom she
would soon find some young ch