She was like that, all wrath
at one minute, all gentleness the next. Springing to her feet, she
caught him by the arm, pressing herself against him.

"All right, Rash. You've done it. That's settled. But it can be undone
again."

He pressed her head back from him, resting the knot of her hair in
the hollow of his palm and looking down into her eyes.

"How can it be undone?"

"Oh, there must be ways. A man can't be allowed to ruin his life--to
ruin two lives--for a prank. We'll just have to think. If you made it
worth while for her to take you, you can make it worth while for her
to let you go. She'll do it."

"She'd do it, of course. She doesn't care. I'm nothing to her, not any
more than she to me. I shan't see her any more than I can help. I
suppose she must stay at the house till--I told Steptoe to look after
her."

She took a position at one end of the mantelpiece, while he faced her
from the other. She gave him wise counsel. He was to see his lawyers
at once and tell them the whole story. Lawyers always saw the way out
of things. There was the Bellington boy who married a show-girl. She
had been bought off, and the lawyers had managed it. Now the
Bellington boy was happily married to one of the Plantagenet Jones
girls and lived at Marillo Park. Then there was the Silliman boy who
had married the notorious Kate Cookesley. The lawyers had found the
way out of that, too, and now the Silliman boy was a secretary of the
American Embassy in Rome. Accidents such as had happened to Rash were
regrettable of course, but it would be folly to think that a perfectly
good life must be done for just because it had got a crack in it.

"We'll play the game, of course," she wound up. "But it's a game, and
the stronger side must win. What should you say of my going to see
her--she needn't know who I am further than that I'm a friend of
yours--and finding out for myself?"

"Finding out what?"

"Finding out her price, silly. What do you suppose? A woman can often
see things like that where a man would be blind."

He didn't know. He thought it might be worth while. He would leave it
to her. "I'm not worth the trouble, Barbe," he said humbly.

With this she agreed. "I know you're not. I can't think for a minute
why I take it or why I should like you. But I do. That's straight."

"And I adore you, Barbe."

She shrugged her shoulders with a little, comic grimace. "Oh, well! I
suppose every one has his own way of showing ad