rinking
from the task.

He crossed the room and took the plates from her, and then with a clean
towel, he deliberately dried her hands, finger by finger, while she stood
by like a docile child, looking up at him in wonder.

"Don't you want to reform me?" she asked plaintively.

"No," he answered shortly.

"Why not?"

"Because you would be too dangerous," he returned. "Now you have every
charm except goodness. If you turned good and gentle you'd be supreme."

"I never thought goodness was a _charm_," she objected.

"And that's just what I hope you will never find out."

She laughed. "I don't believe there's much danger," she said. "I think I
shall go on being wicked and mercenary and selfish to the day of my
death, and probably getting everything I want."

"I hope not. I mean I hope you won't get what you want."

"Oh, why are you so unkind?"

"Because I shall want to use you as a terrible example to my
grandchildren."

"Do you think you will remember me as long as that?"

"I feel no doubt about it."

She smiled. "It seems rather hard that I have to come to a bad end just
to oblige your horrid little grandchildren," she said. "As a matter of
fact, I shall probably run them down in my motor as they go to work with
their little dinner-pails. And as I take their mangled forms to the
hospital, I'll murmur: 'Riatt, Riatt, I think I once knew a half-hearted
reformer of that name.'"

"You think you, too, will remember as long as that?"

"I have an excellent memory for trifles," she returned, and rose yawning.
"And now I think I'll go to bed--unless there's anything more you want to
know about our tribal customs. Are you going to write a nature book about
us: 'Head-hunting Among the Idle Rich'?"

"'The Cannibals of the Atlantic Coast' is the title," he answered as he
gave her a candle. "I'll leave your breakfast for you in the morning
before I go. And by the way, if some one comes to rescue you, don't go
off and leave me in the tool-house, will you?"

"Oh, I'm not really as bad as that."

He shook his head as if he didn't feel sure.

She went away well satisfied with her evening's work. There had been
something extremely flattering in his mingled horror and amusement at her
candid revelations. Holding up the candle she looked at her own image in
her mirror. "I wonder," she thought, "if that young man knows what a
dangerous frame of mind he's in?"

He had some suspicion, for as he dragged a mattress down