"Of course I'm not suspicious," she answered indignantly. "I only mean

to beg your pardon, Dick, and I assure you again that I'm not curious,

even. I asked this question as I have asked a thousand others, and that

would have been the end of it----except for Mr. Norris' face."

She smiled as she turned away, and Dick lifted his eyebrows and shrugged

his shoulders as much as to say, "What difference does it make, anyway?

What difference!" Dick didn't care whether she despised Ellery or

not--he didn't care enough to speak an honorable word of explanation.

Mrs. Lenox came up crying, "Come, my triple alliance, Frank has carried

Miss Quincy off to the billiard-room to give her a lesson. Let us go,

too, to see that they do not get into mischief."

Dick hurried away to usurp Mr. Lenox's place, Madeline tucked her arm

through that of Mrs. Lenox, and Norris was left to follow in outer

darkness.

When bedtime came, Norris detained Percival.

"Come out for a smoke and a turn," he said. "The night is frosty, and

you'll sleep all the better for a sniff of fresh air."

"What are you so glum about?" he asked, as Dick tramped in silence.

He was moody and enraged himself, but too proud to let his anger be

seen.

"Not mad, most noble Norris, only thinking."

"Unfold your thoughts."

"I was thinking about Madeline," answered Dick, and Norris' heart

thumped, for he too was thinking about Madeline. "I wonder if the kind

of training that she and all girls of her class get is the thing, after

all. I'm not talking about knowledge, you understand. I'm not such a cad

as to grudge a girl the best there is in the world. But there's

something else. It's the electric feminine, I suppose, that makes them

the powers behind every throne. Fate is always represented in

petticoats, you know. It sometimes seems as though the better-trained

girls had all that side of them kept out of sight and polished into

nothingness. Why are they taught to ignore the biggest power that's in

them? Why, even that untrained little Miss Quincy is vivid with some

sex-fascination that the more fortunate girls do not often have."

"Oh, she is only a colored light. The sunlight has all other colors

latent in itself. How do you dare to make any comparison between Miss

Quincy and your lovely Miss Elton?"

"Great Scott! Don't say 'my Miss Elton'!" Dick exclaimed. "Madeline

doesn't belong to me." And he added politely, "Worse luck! She and I

have always been like brother and sister. That's all there is to it."

"Are you sure?" demanded Ellery, with hot thrusts of mingled anguish and

exultation stabbing through his bosom.

"Sure!" said Dick equably. "Why, even if I loved her, my dear fellow, I

should know, from her unruffled serenity, that there was no hope for me.

But Madeline isn't a very emotional creature, Ellery. She has too much

brains for that,--a girl to cheer but not inebriate."




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