who sometimes waited upon
you--but nothing more. But at least we were then pretty much alike,
and as good as each other. And now, as soon as you have become suddenly
rich, and, of course, the SUPERIOR, you rush down here to ask me to
acknowledge it by accepting you!"

"You know I never meant that, Miss Kitty," burst out Barker vehemently,
but his protest was drowned in a rapid roulade from the young lady's
fingers on the keys. He sank back in his chair.

"Of course you never MEANT it," she said with an odd laugh; "but
everybody will take it in that way, and you cannot go round to everybody
in Boomville and make the pretty declaration you have just made to me.
Everybody will say I accepted you for your money; everybody will say
it was a put-up job of my father's. Everybody will say that you threw
yourself away on me. And I don't know but that they would be right. Sit
down, please! or I shall play again.

"You see," she went on, without looking at him, "just now you like to
remember that you fell in love with me first as a pretty waiter girl,
but if I became your wife it's just what you would like to FORGET. And
I shouldn't, for I should always like to think of the time when you came
here, whenever you could afford it and sometimes when you couldn't, just
to see me; and how we used to make excuses to speak with each other over
the dishes. You don't know what these things mean to a woman who"--she
hesitated a moment, and then added abruptly, "but what does that matter?
You would not care to be reminded of it. So," she said, rising up with a
grave smile and grasping her hands tightly behind her, "it's a good deal
better that you should begin to forget it now. Be a good boy and take my
advice. Go to San Francisco. You will meet some girl there in a way
you will not afterward regret. You are young, and your riches, to say
nothing," she added in a faltering voice that was somewhat inconsistent
with the mischievous smile that played upon her lips, "of your kind
and simple heart, will secure that which the world would call unselfish
affection from one more equal to you, but would always believe was only
BOUGHT if it came from me."

"I suppose you are right," he said simply.

She glanced quickly at him, and her eyebrows straightened. He had risen,
his face white and his gray eyes widely opened. "I suppose you are
right," he went on, "because you are saying to me what my partners said
to me this morning, when I offered to sha