carefully on her guard against betraying
anything unwarily.

But to him the reserve was an added charm. He called it shyness or
coyness or maidenly timidity, according to the circumstance that called
it forth; but whatever it was, this apathy to his passionate dumb-show
piqued him to a frenzy infused with an element of homage. Any other girl
in her situation would have come half-way at least toward a man in his.
His training having rendered him analytical of the physical side of
things, he endeavored, more or less unsuccessfully, to account for the
extraordinary transformation in himself, whereby every nerve in his body
yearned and strained toward this hard, proud little creature who, too
evidently--as yet, at any rate--refused to take him into account. She
made him feel like a man signaling in the dark or speaking across a
vacuum through which his voice couldn't carry, while he was conscious at
the same time of searchings of heart at making the attempts to do
either.

He was beset by these scruples when, after taking his runabout from the
garage, in order to go to town, he met Lois Willoughby in the Square. On
the instant he remembered Dearlove's counsel of a few days
earlier--"He'd 'ave to ease the first one off a bit." Whatever was to be
his ultimate decision, the wisdom of this course was incontestable. As
she paused, smiling, expecting him to stop, he lifted his hat and drove
onward. Perhaps it was only his imagination that caught in her great,
velvety brown eyes an expression of surprise and pain; but whether his
sight was accurate or not, the memory of the moment smote him. The
process of "easing the first one off" would probably prove difficult. "I
shall have to explain to her that I was in a hurry," he said, to comfort
himself, as he flew onward to the town.

* * * * *

The explanation would have been not untrue, since he was already overdue
at his appointment with Mr. William Darling, his grandfather's executor.

It was the second of the meetings arranged for giving him a general idea
of the estate he was coming into. At the first he had gone over the
lists of stocks, mortgages, and bonds. To-day, with a map of the city
and the surrounding country spread out, partially on the desk and
partially over Mr. Darling's knees as he tilted back in a
revolving-chair, Thor learned the location of certain bits of landed
property which his grandfather, twenty or thirty years before, ha