and, most important of all, a treatise upon social usages.

How to write letters, what R. S. V. P. meant, "Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so
request and so forth," how a lady should greet a gentleman friend--in
short, an answer to all possible questions of right and wrong ways of
appearing in polite society. With her purchases stowed away in a
cracker-box Terry turned again toward the ranch.

In the ordinary course of events Terry should have returned to her home
well ahead of Blenham. But this afternoon she made a wide, circling
detour to chat briefly with Rod Norton's young wife at the Rancho de
las Flores, and so came under the Temple oaks after dusk.

As she turned in at the gate she saw Blenham's horse standing tied down
by the stable. Terry's eyes opened wonderingly and a little flush came
into her cheeks. Plainly Blenham was closeted with her father. Terry
bit her lip, gathered her books in her arms, and hastened toward the
house.

The bawling of a mother cow and a baby calf, separated by a corral
fence, had quite drowned out the purr of her motor; her step as usual
was light upon the porch. The first that Temple and Blenham knew of
her coming was her form in the doorway, her face turned curiously upon
them.

And in that instant, while all three stood motionless, Terry saw and
wondered at a look of understanding which had flashed between her own
father and the despised representative of a hated race. Further she
noted how the glass in Temple's hand was still lifted, as was the glass
in Blenham's, the whiskey still undrunk, winking at her in the pale
lamplight.

"Isn't your eternal drinking bad enough without your asking such as
that to drink with you?" she asked quietly. Very, very quietly for
Miss Terry Temple.

Her father shifted a trifle uneasily. Blenham watched her intently,
admiringly after a gross fashion and yet a bit contemptuously. Blenham
could put a look like that into his eye; to him a girl was a thing that
might be both sneered at and coveted.

"My dear," said Temple, striving for clear enunciation and in the end
achieving it heavily, "I am glad you came. I want you to listen. We
must act wisely. We must not misjudge Mr. Blenham."

While Terry remained silent, looking from one to the other of the two
men. Temple drank his whiskey hastily, furtively, snatching the second
when her gaze had gone to Blenham.

"What's the game?" asked Terry in a moment.

She set her books down upon the