lost caste?"

Needless question! As she asked it, her chin—her prettiest feature, cleanly molded, curving gently back to the soft throat—went up spiritedly. He caught a picture of a struggle far more cruel than her light words implied. A wave of protest swept over him, of tender protectiveness. He had to fight down an impulse to catch her close, to cry out that thenceforth he would assume her burden. He rejoiced intensely that he had found so rare a spirit, fragile yet brave and equal to all the hard emergencies life had put upon her.

Then he took thought of his income and the brevity of their acquaintance and was abashed.

The Jim Blaisdells met them at the club for a dinner at which David was host. It was a nicely appointed dinner, the best the chef could contrive. Also it was distinctly an extravagance. But David did not care. His spirits ran high, in a gaiety that was infectious. It was a very successful party.

After that came two short hours on the veranda, while a three-quarters moon rose to shower the world with silver, gaiety dwindled and a solemn tender happiness mounted. Then they drove homeward, by a roundabout way, in Jim's car. David and Shirley had the back seat, for the most part in a free intimate silence that was delicious indeed.

Later Mrs. Jim found her guest dreamily braiding her hair for the night.

"Shirley," she began directly, "this is going too fast. David's too nice a boy to be hurt. He's taking your flirtation seriously."

"I'm not flirting with him. At least I don't think I am," Shirley amended slowly.

"I thought you were interested only in rich men?"

"I did think so. But now— It might be fun to be poor—with him—for a while. It wouldn't be for long. You said yourself he'll have a brilliant future."

"I think so. But it might be long coming. A professional career is so uncertain at the start. And it's never fun to be poor—unless you're equipped. Married life is more than parties and golf and dinners at the club. Shirley, dear," she concluded pleadingly, "do be sensible."

"Of course, I will be. You forget I know all about poverty from experience." Shirley looked up suddenly, keenly. "Why do you warn me? Is there any reason why you're afraid to entrust me to David Quentin?"

"No-o," said Mrs. Jim.

How could she voice the question in her mind? It was, could she entrust
David Quentin to Shirley?

Still later, "Jim," she said to her almost sleeping husband, "I'm worried. I'm afraid David and Shirley will get themselves engaged."

"Won't hurt 'em," grunted Jim.

"But they might get married."

"People do it sometimes. Be good for him. Life's been too easy for
Davy."

"I feel responsible. Couldn't you speak to Davy and warn him to go slow?"

"I thought," mumbled Jim, "you were a wise woman," and dropped off to sleep.

At the same late hour David was sitting at the window of his darkened room, smoking pipe after pipe, gazing raptly up at the moon-lit sky. "By George!" he would breathe ecstatically, "By George!" as though he had been seeing something wonderful in ecclesiastical architecture. In fact he was planning that wondrous house of love, none the less entrancing for that many other young lovers had designed it before.

Every day during Shirley's two weeks' visit she and David were together, sometimes, through Mrs. Jim's contrivance, with others and often, by grace of their own ingenuity, alone, drifting carelessly down the most traveled stream of life. If Mrs. Jim's warning had awakened any doubts in Shirley's mind—and it had—the doubts were quickly laid by David's presence. She let herself drift; this in spite of certain very definite and very different plans which she had made for her future. (In her home city was one Sam Hardy, a money-maker, very attractive, very devoted.) People saw it and were charmed; a young woman simply, daringly, unquestioningly yielding to love is a picture from whose wonder neither time nor repetition can subtract. Only to Mrs. Jim did it occur to ponder whether the impulse to surrender sprang from deeps or shallows.

And only Dick Holden, who was then David's chief chum, ventured to hang out a danger signal.

"My son," he said one day when he managed to find David alone, "I'm afraid you're growing susceptible to women."

"Always was. Any great harm in that?"

"Huh! If you'd had sisters," grunted the ungallant Dick, "you wouldn't ask that. You don't know 'em. You think they're nice, fluffy little angels, don't you? Well, they're not. They—they say catty things. And they've claws in their white, soft little paws, and they'd rather scratch than eat. And they don't understand men."

"Whoopee!" said David. "Do it some more."

"Huh! You think they're kind and sympathetic, don't you? You think because they look soulfully up at you when you're gabbling about ecclesiastical architecture they're taking it all in. Well, they're not. They're thinking, 'He has nice eyes—too bad he hasn't money!' I know. I've heard 'em talking behind the scenes. They don't understand the game of things. They only want a husband for a provider and they soon let him know it. Then he might as well go lie down and die. Take it from me. Few men," Dick concluded sagely, "survive matrimony."

David laughed uproariously at this counsel.

"You blooming old cynic! You poor old he-Cassandra! Where did you get all your wisdom? Just wait until you find some one—"

"Huh! I have found her. Or rather she's found me. I could let her make a fool of me. But I won't. A long life and my own life for me. I'm wearing a sign, 'Nothing doing!' You'd better get one just like it."

David roared again.

"All right, laugh!" growled Dick. "Rope, tie and brand yourself. And then some of these days when you're one woman's property and you find the other woman is just around the corner waiting— That's another thing, Davy."

But David turned his back on the counselor and fled. What did Dick know about it?

The dream was being realized, the lonely gaps filled. He was to have some one of his own to love and to serve. This time his heart was a captive for life; any one who had been in love a baker's dozen of times could tell that. He expected great things of love. He saw it as something exquisitely fine and beautiful and yet proof against the vandal fingers of familiarity; a joy always, a light for the dark places, a guide and comrade in stressful times; and everlasting as the hills. Just as the poets have always sung of it. Would any man wear a sign, "Nothing doing!" in the face of that?

The last afternoon of Shirley's visit came, clear and crisp, a strong west wind lifting the haze from the tinted hills. They pretended to play golf, but their strokes were perfunctory, absent-minded. They talked little and that in strangely low tones, always soberly. After a while they gave up the pretense, sought a seat on a secluded sunny slope and fell into a long silence.

"Shirley!" he broke it at length.

"Yes, David?"

"I'll hate to see you go back."

"I know. I'll hate to go, too."

"It—hurts me to think of your going back to work."

"Oh, I'm used to it." She smiled. A world of sweet courage was in that smile.

"Shirley—dear!"

She raised her eyes