e had been leaders
always. She had the divine right to an assured place in society, and I
had failed. I suppose it was natural enough for her to feel that she'd
been done in--but it happened to be the finish of me. I'd sweated blood
to make Middlesboro--and I didn't have the grit left to commence over."

For the first time Colonel Wallifarro's attitude stiffened, bringing up
his silver-crowned head defensively.

"Anne didn't leave you for financial reasons, Larry," he asserted
steadily. "She's my kinswoman, and you are my friend, but no purpose is
to be served by my listening to _ex parte_ grievances from either of
you."

Masters shrugged his shoulders. "I dare say you're quite right," he
admitted. "But be that as it may, she did leave me--left me flat. If she
didn't divorce me, it wasn't out of consideration for my feelings. It
would almost have been better if she had. All I ever succeeded in doing
for her was to make her the poor member of a rich family--and that's not
enviable by half. And yet if I'd been a sheer rotter, I could scarcely
have fared worse."

"If it wasn't consideration for you, at least it was for some one who
should be important to you. As it is, your little girl isn't growing up
under the shadow of a sensational divorce record."

The pale blue eyes of the Englishman softened abruptly, and the lips
under the short-clipped moustache changed from their stiffness to the
curvature of something like a smile. Into his expression came a lurking,
half-shy ghost of winsomeness. "Yes, yes," he muttered, "the kiddie.
God bless her little heart!"

After a moment, though, he drew back his shoulders with a jerk and spoke
again in a harsher timbre.

"Anne has been fair enough with me about the child, though I'm bound to
say I've been jolly well made to understand that it was only a
chivalrous and undeserved sort of generosity. Well, the kiddie's almost
twelve now, and before long she'll be a belle, too--poor, but related to
all the first families."

Masters paused, and when he went on again it was still with the air of a
repressed chafing of spirit.

"I dare say her mother will see to it that she doesn't repeat the
mistake of the previous generation--marrying a man with only a splendid
expectancy. Her heart will be schooled to demand the assured thing. That
pointing with pride--a gesture which you Kentuckians so enjoy--well,
with my little girl, it will all be done toward the distaff branch.
There won't