its wild, exquisite beauty.

She uttered an absent-minded "Yes," hesitated, plunged boldly: "Mr.
Trego, I do wish you'd let me give back this money!"

His slowness in replying moved her to seek an answer in his face. He
was unquestionably sifting his surprise for some excuse for her
extraordinary request; a deep gravity informed his heavy-lidded eyes
that were keen with an intelligence far more alert than she had
previously credited.

He said deliberately: "Why?"

"I'd rather not say." She offered the money in her open hand. "But I'd
feel--well, easier, if you'd take it back."

He clasped his hands behind him and shook his head. "Not without good
reason. I don't understand, and what I don't understand I can't be
party to."

She tried the effect of a wistful smile. "Please! I wish you wouldn't
make me tell you."

"I wish you wouldn't put me in such an uncomfortable position. I don't
like to refuse you anything you've set your heart on, but my notion of
playing the game is to lose like a loser and--win like a winner."

"That's just it. I can't win like a winner because--because I didn't
win fairly."

"You never cheated."

It was less a question than an assertion.

"How do you know?"

"I'd have known quick enough if you'd tried. Anyway, you're not that
kind."

"How do you know I'm not?"

There was a pause. Then Trego smiled oddly. "Better not ask me. You
don't know me very well yet."

She coloured faintly. "Then I must tell you you are wrong. I did
cheat. I did, I tell you! I played for money without a cent to pay my
losses if I lost. You don't call that fair play, do you?"

"Depends. Of course, it's hard to believe."

"I'm penniless. You don't understand my position here. I'm--nobody.
Mrs. Standish took pity on me because I was out of work and brought me
here to act as secretary to Mrs. Gosnold."

Trego nodded heavily. "I guessed it. I mean I felt pretty sure you
were--well, of another world." He jerked a disrespectful head toward
the smiling face of Gosnold House. "The same as me," he added. "That's
why I thought . . . But it doesn't matter what I thought."

An unreasonable resentment held her true to the course of her purpose.

"Well, now you know, you must see it's impossible--"

"I don't," he contended stubbornly. "Maybe I'm the devil's advocate,
but the way I see it--to begin with, I was playing for money; if I had
won I'd have expected you to pay up."

"But I couldn't--"

"You would