on to sit beside Mona in her own house with her
father present."

"You humor the man too much," Anne said with a laugh. "I can twist John
Everard about my finger, only----"

"There it is," cried Grahame. "Behold it in its naked simplicity! Only!
Well, if anything short of the divine can get around, over, under,
through, or by his sweet, little 'only,' he's fit to be the next king of
Ireland. What have I not done to do away with it? Once I thought, I
hoped, that the invitation to read the poem on the landing of the
Pilgrim Fathers, coming as a climax to multitudinous services, would
surely have fetched him. Now, with the invitation in my pocket, I'm
afraid to mention it. What if he should scorn it?"

"He won't if I say the word. Give me the column to-morrow, and any time
I want it for a month or two, and I'll guarantee that John Everard will
do the right thing by you."

"You can have the column. What do you want it for?"

"The alliance, of course. I'm in the business of making history, as I
told you. Don't open your mouth quite so wide, please. There's to be a
meeting of the wise in this house, after a dinner, to express favorable
opinions about the alliance. Then in a month or two a distinguished
peer, member of the British Cabinet, is coming over to sound the great
men on the question.... What are you whistling for?"

"You've got a fine thing, Mrs. Dillon," said he. "By Jove, but I'll help
you spread this for all it's worth."

"Understand," she said, tapping the table with emphasis, "the alliance
must go through as far as we can make it go. Now, do your best. When you
go over to see John Everard next, go with a mind to kill him if he
doesn't take your offer to marry his daughter. I'll see to it that the
poem on the Pilgrims does the trick for you."

"I'd have killed him long ago, if I thought it worth the trouble," he
said.

He felt that the crisis had come for him and Mona. That charming girl,
in spite of his entreaties, of his threats to go exploring Africa,
remained as rigidly faithful to her ideas of duty as her father to his
obstinacy. She would not marry without his consent. With all his
confidence in Anne's cleverness, how could he expect her to do the
impossible? To change the unchangeable? John Everard showed no sign of
the influence which had brought Livingstone to his knees, when Grahame
and Mona stood before him, and the lover placed in her father's hands
the document of honor.

"Really, this i