contact with the aggressive unpretentiousness of the New,
and if need were she was ready to stand by him. All she could say,
however, for the moment was:

"Won't you sit down? Perhaps I ought to ring for tea."

She made the latter remark from habit. It was what she was accustomed to
think of when on an autumn day the sun went behind the distant rim of
Brookline hills and dusk began to gather in the oval room, as it was
gathering now. If she did not ring, it was because of her sense of the
irony of offering hospitality in a house where not even a cup of tea was
paid for.

She seated herself beside the round table in the chair she had occupied
a half-hour earlier, facing inward to the room instead of outward to the
portico. Ashley backed to the curving wall of the room, while Davenant
scarcely advanced beyond the doorway. In his slow, careful approach the
latter reminded her somewhat of a big St. Bernard dog responding to the
summons of a leopard.

"Been up to see--?" Ashley nodded in the direction of what he took to be
Guion's room.

Davenant, too, nodded, but said nothing.

"How did you find papa to-day?"

"Pretty fair, Miss Guion; only, perhaps, a little more down on his luck
than usual."

"The excitement kept him up at first. Now that that's over--"

Ashley interrupted her, addressing himself to Davenant. "I understand
that it's to you we owe Mr. Guion's relief from the most pressing part
of his cares."

Davenant's face clouded. It was the thing he was afraid of--Ashley's
intrusion into the little domain of helpfulness which for a few days he
had made his own. He answered warily:

"My business with Mr. Guion, Colonel, has been private. I hope you won't
mind if we leave it so."

Ashley's manner took on the diplomatic persuasiveness he used toward
restive barbaric potentates.

"Not a bit, my dear fellow. Of course it's private--only not as regards
Miss Guion and me. You simply _must_ allow us to say how grateful we are
for your help, even though it need be no more than temporary."

The word produced its effect. Davenant looked from Ashley to Olivia
while he echoed it. "Temporary?"

Ashley nodded again. "You have no objection, I presume, to that?"

"If Mr. Guion is ever in a position to pay me back," Davenant said,
slowly, in some bewilderment, "of course I'll take it."

"Quite so; and I think I may say that with a little time--let us say a
year--we shall be able to meet--"

"It's a good bit of m