s to it. So would you. What's
fifteen thousand when one of your contracts alone runs into the hundred
thousands? Honey?"

"Wire," he said, sourly, but not withdrawing his hand from hers.

* * * * *

They left her at the shady court-house steps in Demopolis, but with
pleasantry and gibe.

"Give my love to the town pump."

"Rush the old oaken growler for me."

"So long!" she called, eager to be rid of them. "Pick me up at six
sharp."

She walked slowly up High Street. Passers-by turned to stare, but
otherwise she was unrecognized. There was a new five-and-ten-cent store,
and Finley Brothers had added an ell. High Street was paved. She made a
foray down into the little side street where she had spent those queerly
remote first seventeen years of her life. How dim her aunt seemed! The
little unpainted frame house was gone. There was a lumber yard on the
site. Everything seemed to have shrunk. The street was narrower and
dirtier than she recalled it.

She made one stop, at the house of Maggie Simms, a high-school chum. It
was a frame house, too, and she remembered that the front door opened
directly into the parlor and the side entrance was popularly used
instead. But a strange sister-in-law opened the side door. Maggie was
married and living in Cincinnati. Oh, fine--a master mechanic, and there
were twins. She started back toward Finley's, thinking of Gerald, and
halfway she changed her mind.

Maggie Simms married and living in Cincinnati. Twins! Heigh-ho! What a
world! The visit was hardly a success. At half after five she was on her
way back to the court-house steps. Stupid to have made it six!

And then, of course, and quite as you would have it, Gerald Fishback
came along. She recognized his blondness long before he saw her. He was
bigger and more tanned, and, as of old, carried his hat in his hand. She
noticed that there were no creases down the front of his trousers, but
the tweed was good and he gave off that intangible aroma of well-being.

She was surprised at the old thrill racing over her. Seeing him was like
a stab of quick steel through the very pit of her being. She reached
out, touching him, before he saw her.

"Gerald," she said, soft and teasingly.

It was actually as if he had been waiting for that touch, because before
he could possibly have perceived her her name was on his lips.

"Hester!" he said, the blueness of his eyes flashing between blinks.
"Not He