and not bound by Conference restrictions, he
was able at many points to improve his company's position. And when,
in the early days of the coming January, Mr. Bartels should approach
his annual statement, it seemed probable that it would show little
diminution in the Guardian's resources. The statement would be helped,
too, by the fact that the value of some of the securities owned by the
company, chiefly considerable blocks of bank and anthracite railroad
stocks, had appreciated very handsomely during the year. And Mr.
Cuyler, thanks to the increased conflagration line and to the large
business he was securing from his new branch manager, was making a
record so good that he could scarcely believe the figures which he
himself had compiled.

All in all, the showing would be by no means a discreditable one. It
had been a remarkable task; and Smith, now that he came to look back on
it, remembering the black days of the reign of Gunterson the Unready,
could himself only wonder mildly at the way all these things had come
about. In the midst of the satisfaction which he could not help but
feel, there was always a genuine sense of amazement at the facile way
in which Fate had played into his hand. If he had any doubts, however,
no one else confessed to any. Mr. Wintermuth frankly gave to his young
underwriter the proper share of credit for the results that had been
brought about. All this was pleasant, but it was also earned.

In these months of activity, activity unusual even for Smith, who was
customarily a busy man, there had been for him only one personal
diversion. This was his growing friendship with Helen Maitland; and to
this relationship Smith had by this time come to turn as a lost Arab
turns to a chance-discovered oasis. Through the days of Gunterson's
administration he had not had heart to write Helen or even to think of
her--to his darkened vision she seemed increasingly far away. But this
could not last, and when the tide turned, he presently found himself
writing to her almost as to another self, and found himself awaiting
her letters as filling one of the most vital needs of his life. There
was a name for this, but as yet he was not prepared to use it, and if
Helen were prepared, certainly no hint of any such readiness showed
through her diction.

Because men no longer go abroad, as in medieval times, hewing their way
to glory and romance with sword and mace, it is no sure sign that the
flower h