hat could not be ignored. When he pressed for a
reason, the young man broke out into invective.

"Don't pretend!" he cried. "You've heard of the case of John Alden.
What's been worked once may go again. I'm not entirely blind."

Mr. Weil, with pained eyes, begged his friend to explain.

"Tell me this," shouted Roseleaf. "Do you love that girl, yourself?"

Unprepared for the question, Archie shrank as from a flash of lightning,
and could not reply.

"I know you _do_!" came the next sentence, sharply. "And I know that it
is owing to the inroads you have made--not only with her but with her
father--that I have been pushed out. Well, go ahead. I've no objection.
Only don't come here every day, with your cock and bull stories of
pleading _my_ cause, for I've had enough of them!"

The novelist turned aside, and Mr. Weil, too hurt to say a word, arose
and silently left the room. His brain whirled so that he was actually
giddy. Not knowing where else to turn he went to see Mr. Gouger, to whom
he unbosomed the result of his call.

"Don't be too serious about it," said Gouger, soothingly. "It's a good
thing for the lad to get his sluggish blood stirred a little. In a day
or two he'll be all right. That novel of his is coming on grandly!"

Weil was in no mood to talk about novels, and finding that he could get
no consolation of the kind he craved, he soon left the office. The
critic laughed silently to himself at the idea of the biter having at
last been bitten, and then took his way to Roseleaf's rooms.

No answer being returned to his knock, he opened the door and entered.
At first he thought the place was vacant, but presently he espied a
still form on the bed. The novelist was stretched out in an attitude
which at first suggested death rather than sleep, and alarmed the
visitor not a little. Investigation, however, showed that he was simply
in a tired sleep, worn out with worry and restless nights.

"What a beauty!" whispered Gouger. "A very dramatic scene could be
worked up if that sweetheart of his were brought here and made to stand
beside the couch when he awakes. Yes, it would be grand, but it would
need his own pen to trace the words!"

The hardly dry pages of the great manuscript that lay on an adjacent
desk caught the eyes of the critic, and he sat down to scan them
closer. As he turned the leaves he grew so delighted as to become almost
uncontrollable.

"He's a genius, nothing less!" he said, rapturously,