cide myself--I've tried; and Elice--there are reasons why she
can't assist now either. It's--" he made a motion to rise, but checked
himself--"it's something that has to be decided now too."

"Has to?" Randall's eyes behind the big lens of his glasses were suddenly
keen. "Why, Steve?"

"Because it's now or never," swiftly. "I've--we've hesitated until we
can't delay any longer. I'm not sure that it's not been too long already,
that's why Elice can't figure." He drew himself up with an effort, held
himself still. "We've crossed the dividing line, Elice and I, and we're
drifting apart. Just how the thing has come about I don't know; but it's
true. We're on different roads somehow and we're getting farther apart
every month." He sprang to his feet, his face turned away. "Soon--It's
simply hell, Harry!"

Randall sat still; recollecting, he laughed,--a laugh that he tried to
make natural.

"Oh, pshaw!" He laughed again. "You're mixing up some of the novels
you're writing with real life. This sort of thing is nonsense, pure
nonsense."

"No, it's so," flatly. "I've tried hard enough to think it different, but
I couldn't because it is so. It's hell, I say!"

"Don't you love her, man?" abruptly.

"Love her!" Armstrong wheeled, his face almost fierce. "Of course I love
her. A hundred times yes. I'm a cursed fool over her."

"Sit down then and tell me just what's on your mind. You're magnifying a
mole-hill of some kind into a snow-capped peak. Sit down, please.
You--irritate me that way."

A second Armstrong hesitated. His face a bit flushed, he obeyed.

"That's better." The brusqueness was deliberately intentional. "Now out
with it, clear the atmosphere. I'm listening."

Armstrong looked at his friend a bit suspiciously; but the mood was too
strong upon him to cease now even if he would.

"Just what do you wish to know?" he asked in tentative prelude. "Give me
a clew."

"What you wish to tell me," evenly. "Neither more nor less."

"You have no curiosity?"

Randall made no comment this time, merely waited.

"Very well, then, if you have no curiosity.... I don't know how much to
tell you anyway, what you don't already know. As I said when I first came
in, I didn't have it in mind to bore you at all, I just wanted to ask
your opinion--" The speaker halted and hurriedly lit the cigar he had
been holding. "To jump into the thick of it, I got a little letter from
the president to-day, a little--warning." Armstrong s