was hugging
himself with delight.

"I don't just understand you, Anne," he said hesitatingly "You appear
to be vexed about something."

"I? Oh, no, I'm not, Mr. Irving. Of course old friends don't count
now. Well, I've no doubt new ones will wear just as well."

"If it's about my going to see Harriet," said Jerome easily "I don't
see as how it can matter much to you. Goodness knows, you took enough
pains to show me you didn't want me. I don't blame you. A woman has a
right to please herself, and a man ought to have sense to take his
answer and go. I hadn't, and that's where I made my mistake. I don't
mean to pester you any more, but we can be real good friends, can't
we? I'm sure I'm as much your friend as ever I was."

Now, I hold that this speech of Jerome's, delivered in a cool,
matter-of-fact tone, as of a man stating a case with dispassionate
fairness, was a masterpiece. It was the last cleverly executed
movement of the campaign. If it failed to effect a capitulation, he
was a defeated man. But it did not fail.

Anne had got to that point where an excited woman must go mad or cry.
Anne cried. She sat flatly down on a chair and burst into tears.

Jerome's hat went one way and his cane another. Jerome himself sprang
across the intervening space and dropped into the chair beside Anne.
He caught her hand in his and threw his arm boldly around her waist.

"Goodness gracious, Anne! Do you care after all? Tell me that!"

"I don't suppose it matters to you if I do," sobbed Anne. "It hasn't
seemed to matter, anyhow."

"Anne, look here! Didn't I come after you for fifteen years? It's you
I always have wanted and want yet, if I can get you. I don't care a
rap for Harriet Warren or anyone but you. Now that's the truth right
out, Anne."

No doubt it was, and Anne was convinced of it. But she had to have her
cry out--on Jerome's shoulder--and it soothed her nerves wonderfully.
Later on Octavia, slipping noiselessly up the steps in the dusk, saw a
sight that transfixed her with astonishment. When she recovered
herself she turned and fled wildly around the house, running bump into
Sam Mitchell, who was coming across the yard from a twilight
conference with the hired men.

"Goodness, Tavy, what's the matter? Y' look 'sif y'd seen a ghost."

Octavia leaned up against the wall in spasms of mirth.

"Oh, Sam," she gasped, "old Jerome Irving and Aunt Anne are sitting
round there in the dark on the front porch and he had