lse I know--but this is the
point, Mr. Thorpe. I do not eat the bread of dependence gracefully. I
pull wry faces over it, and I don't try very much to disguise them. That
is my fault. Yes--oh yes, I know it is a fault--but I am as I am. And
if Miss Madden doesn't mind--why"--she concluded with a mirthless,
uncertain laugh--"why on earth should you?"

"Ah, why should I?" he echoed, reflectively. "I should like desperately
to tell you why. Sometime I will tell you."

They walked on in silence for a brief space. Then she put out her hand
for her wrap, and as she paused, he spread it over her shoulders.

"I am amazed to think what we have been saying to each other," she said,
buttoning the fur as they moved on again. "I am vexed with myself."

"And more still with me," he suggested.

"No-o--but I ought to be. You've made me talk the most shocking
rubbish."

"There we disagree again, you know. Everything you've said's been
perfect. What you're thinking of now is that I'm not an old enough
friend to have been allowed to hear it. But if I'm not as old a friend
as some, I wish I could make you feel that I'm as solid a friend as
any--as solid and as staunch and as true. I wish I could hear you say
you believed that."

"But you talk of 'friends,'" she said, in a tone not at all
responsive--"what is meant by 'friends'? We've chanced to meet
twice--and once we barely exchanged civilities, and this time we've been
hotel acquaintances--hardly more, is it?--and you and your young people
have been very polite to me--and I in a silly moment have talked to
you more about my affairs than I should--I suppose it was because you
mentioned my father. But 'friends' is rather a big word for that, isn't
it?"

Thorpe pouted for a dubious moment. "I can think of a bigger word
still," he said, daringly. "It's been on the tip of my tongue more than
once."

She quickened her pace. The air had grown perceptibly colder. The
distant mountains, visible ever and again through the bare branches,
were of a dark and cheerless blue, and sharply defined against the sky.
It was not yet the sunset hour, and there were no mists, but the light
of day seemed to be going out of the heavens. He hurried on beside her
in depressed silence.

Their companions were hidden from view in a convolution of the winding
road, but they were so near that their voices could be heard as they
talked. Frequently the sound of laughter came backward from them.

"They're j