"You ought to have your hands slapped, of course. Electra's done it, so
far as I can see. So now let's get over crying and go out and jump
rope."

"It isn't so much the book nor the money nor Electra. It's because I
can't help wondering whether I'm a moral idiot. Do you think I am,
Billy?"

"I think you're the gamest old girl that ever was, if you want to know.
Let me have the horse put into the phaeton, Florrie, and we'll go out
and jog awhile."

But she was musing. Suddenly he saw how old she looked.

"It's always been so, Billy. I never was able to see things as other
people saw them. These rules they make such a pother about never seemed
so vital to me. It's all a part of life, seems to me. Go ahead and live,
that's what we're in for. Growing things just grow, don't they? They
don't stop and take photographs of themselves on the twenty-third day of
every month. Now, do they?"

"Florrie," said her old friend, still watching her, "I'll tell you what
you do. You just run away with me and come to London. We've got fifteen
good years before us yet, if we take 'em soberly."

She seemed to be considering. Her face lighted.

"I could almost do it," she owned. "Electra's having me here helps out a
lot, but I could almost do it-on my polluted gains."

Billy Stark looked into the distance. In his earlier years he had loved
to ride and take his fences well, even when they loomed too high. He
could not remember many great challenges in life; but what he had
recognized, he had not refused. Everything he had met like an honest
gentleman.

"Florrie," he said, "I shan't want to leave you here in Electra's
clutches. You come--and marry me."

She laughed a little. It was sadly done, but the pink came back into her
cheeks.

"As true as I am a living sinner, Billy," she said, "I'd do it, if I
were half sure how we were coming out."

"Coming out?"

"Yes. If I thought I should be pretty vigorous up to the end, and then
die in my chair, like a lady. Yes, I'd do it, and thank ye, too. But a
million things might happen to me. I might be palsied and helpless on
your hands, head nodding, deaf as a post--damn, Billy! I could swear."

"I might give out myself," he said generously. "You might be the one to
tote the burden."

The old lady laughed again.

"The amount of it is, Billy, we're afraid. Own up. Now aren't we?"

Billy thought it over.

"I'm not so sure of that," he said contentiously, "I'm not prepared to
say I'm