he tapped her closed fan against the palm of her
left hand. Her eyes came back to his face. "I'm glad you've told me."

He took a virtuous tone. "I think those things ought to be--to be open
and aboveboard."

"Oh, of course. The wonder is that I shouldn't have heard it. One
generally does."

"Oh, well, you wouldn't in this case."

"Isn't it anybody--about here?"

"It's some one about here, but not any one you would have heard of. She
lives in our village. She's the daughter of a--well, of a
market-gardener."

"How interesting! And you're in love with her?" But because of what she
saw in his face she went on quickly: "No; I won't ask you that. Don't
answer. Of course you're in love with her. _I_ think it's splendid--a
man with your"--chances was the word that suggested itself, but she made
it future--"a man with your future to fall in love with a girl like
that."

There was a bright glow in her face to which he tried to respond. He
said that which, owing to its implications, he could not have said to
any other girl in the world, but could say to her because of her
twentieth-century freedom from the artificial. "Now you see why I
shouldn't come."

She gave a little assenting nod. "Yes; perhaps you'd better not--for a
while--not quite so often, at any rate. By and by, I dare say, we shall
get everything on another--another basis--and then--"

She rose, so that he followed her example; but he shook his head. "No,
we sha'n't. There won't be any other basis."

She took this with her usual sincerity. "Well, perhaps not. I don't
suppose we can really tell yet. We must just--see. When he stops," she
added, with scarcely a change of tone, as she moved away from him, "do
go over and talk to Mrs. Boyce. She likes attentions from young men."

What Claude chiefly retained of his brief conversation was the approval
in the words, "_I_ think it's splendid." He thought it splendid himself.
He felt positive now that if he had pressed his suit--if he had been
free to press it--he might one day have been treading this polished
floor not as guest, but as master. There were no difficulties in the way
that couldn't easily be overcome, if he and Elsie had been of a mind to
do it--and she would have a good fifty thousand a year! Yes, it was
splendid; there was no other word for it. He was giving up this
brilliant future for the sake of little Rosie Fay--and counting the
world well lost.

* * * * *