rearily at the window looking out. "You think then she
won't be able to see me for several days? I had planned such a lot of
things."

The Doctor dropped a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Life has a way of
spoiling our plans, hasn't it? I had hoped for old age with Jean's
mother."

That was something for youth to think of--of life spoiling things--of
lonely old age!

"I wish," Derry said, after a pause, "that you'd let me marry her
before you go."

"No, no," sharply, "she's too young, Drake. And you haven't known each
other long enough."

"Things move rapidly in these days, sir."

The Doctor agreed. "It is one of the significant developments. We had
become material. And now fire and flame. But all the more reason why
I should keep my head. Jean will be safe here with Emily. And you may
go any day."

"I wish I might think so. I'd be there now if I weren't bound."

"It won't hurt either of you to wait until I come back," was the
Doctor's ultimatum, and Derry, longing for sympathy, left him presently
and made his way to the Toy Shop.

"If we were to wait ten years do you think I'd love her any more than I
do now?" he demanded of Emily. "I should think he'd understand."

"Men never do understand," said Emily--"fathers. They think their own
romance was unique, or they forget that there was ever any romance."

"If you could put in a word for us," ventured Derry.

"I am not sure that it would do any good; Bruce is a Turk."

A customer came, and Derry lingered disconsolately while Emily served
her. More customers, among them a tall spare man with an upstanding
bush of gray hair. He had a potted plant in his arms, wrapped in
tissue paper. He set it on the counter and went away.

When Miss Emily discovered the plant, she asked Derry, "Who put it
there?"

Derry described the man. "You were busy. He didn't stop."

The plant was a cyclamen, blood-red and beautiful.

Miss Emily managed to remark casually that she had loaned his father an
elephant, perhaps he had felt that he ought to make some return--but he
needn't--.

"_An elephant_?"

"Not a real one. But the last of my plush beauties."

She set the cyclamen on a shelf, and wrapped up the parcel of toys
which Derry had bought the day before, "I may as well take them to
Margaret Morgan's kiddies," he told her. "I want to tell her about
Jean."

After Derry had gone, Miss Emily stood looking at the cyclamen on the
shelf. It was a lovely