from the warm room. Verinder
stepped back into the parlor, stripped from the piano the small Navajo
rug that draped it, and rejoined Joyce on the porch. He wrapped it about
her shoulders.

She nodded thanks and led him to the end of the porch. For a few moments
she leaned on the railing and watched the street lights. Then, abruptly,
she shot her question at him.

"Why are you going away?"

Stiff as a poker, he made answer. "Business in London, Miss Seldon.
Sorry to leave and all that, but----"

She cut him off sharply. "I want the truth. What have I done that you
should ... treat me so?"

Anger stirred in him again. "Did I say you had done anything?"

"But you think I'm to blame. You know you do."

"Do I?" His vanity and suspicion made him wary, though he knew she was
trying to win him back. He told himself that he had been made a fool of
long enough.

"Yes, you do ... and it's all your fault." She broke down and turned
half from him. Deep sobs began to rack her body.

"I'd like to know how it's my fault," he demanded resentfully. "Am I to
blame because you broke your engagement to walk with me and went with
that thief Kilmeny?"

"Yes." The word fell from her lips so low that he almost doubted his
ears.

"What? By Jove, that's rich!"

Her luminous eyes fell full into his, then dropped. "If ... if you can't
see----"

"See what? I see you threw me overboard for him. I see you've been
flirting a mile a minute with the beggar and playing fast and loose with
me. I'm hanged if I stand it."

"Oh, Dobyans! Don't you see? I ... I ... You made me."

"Made you?"

She was standing in profile toward him. He could see the quiver of her
lip and the shadows beneath her eyes. Already he felt the lift of the
big wave that was to float him to success.

"I ... have no mother."

"Don't take the point."

She spoke as a troubled child, as if to the breezes of the night. "I
have to be careful. You know how people talk. Could I let them say that
I ... ran after you?" The last words were almost in a whisper.

"Do you mean...?"

"Oh, couldn't you see? How blind men are!"

The little man, moved to his soul because this proud beauty was so
deeply in love with him, took her in his arms and kissed her.

A little shudder went through her blood. It had not been two hours since
Jack Kilmeny's kisses had sent a song electrically into her veins. But
she trod down the momentary nausea with the resolute will that had
always