t not even Mr. Colbrith had a right to
require.

After dinner he indemnified himself for the kindergarten lecture by
boldly taking possession of Miss Adair for the short walk over to the
private car. The entire world of work was still ahead, and a corps of
expert stenographers was at the moment awaiting his return to the C. P.
& D. offices, where he had established temporary headquarters; but he
shut the door upon the exigencies and listened to Miss Alicia.

"I am so sorry we are not going to be here to see your triumph," she was
saying; adding: "It is a triumph, isn't it?"'

"Only a beginning," he amended. "And it won't be spectacular, if we can
help it. Besides, this east-end affair is only a preliminary. A little
later on, if our tackle doesn't break, we shall land the really big fish
for which this is only the bait."

"Shall you never be satisfied?" she asked jestingly. And then, more
seriously: "What is your ambition? To be able to buy what your neighbor
can not afford?"

"Big money, you mean? No, I think not. But I like to win, as well as
other men."

"To win what?"

"Whatever seems worth winning--this fight, in the present instance, and
the consequent larger field. Later, enough money to enable me to think
of money only as a stepping-stone to better things. Later still,
perhaps--"

He stopped abruptly, as though willing to leave the third desideratum in
the air, but she would not let him.

"Go on," she said. "Last of all?"

"Last of all, the love of a true woman."

"Oh!" she scoffed, with a little uptilt of the admirable chin. "Then
love must come trailing along at the very end, after we have skimmed
the cream from all the other milk pans in orderly succession."

"No," he rejoined gravely. "I put it clumsily--as I snatch purses. As a
matter of sober fact, love sets the mile-stones along any human road
that is worth traversing."

She glanced up at him and the blue eyes were dancing. Miss Alicia Adair
knew no joy to compare with that of teasing, and it was not often that
the fates gave her such a pliable subject.

"Tell me, Mr. Ford; is--is she pretty?"

"She is beautiful; the most beautiful woman in the world, Miss Adair."

"How fine! And, of course, she is a paragon of all the virtues?--an
angel without the extremely inconvenient wings?"

"You have said it: and I have never doubted it from the moment I first
laid eyes on her."

"Better and better," she murmured. Then: "She has money?"

"