didn’t gas much,” the boy said, “but I could draw a map of some of the things he did say. He used to say he made his money out of the earth.”

The two were walking side by side across the rich velvet of the immemorial English turf. The extreme softness of the autumn day, its shifting lights, its mellow envelope, the beauty of the park—the age, the stability, the harmony, served to touch the young fellow’s spirits. At any rate there was a ring in him, an equilibrium that surprised Galorey.

“‘Most things,’ dad said to me, ‘go back to the earth.’” He struck the English turf with his stick. “Dad said a fellow had better buy those things that stay above the ground.” Dan smiled frankly at his companion. “Curious thing to say, wasn’t it?” he reflected. “I remembered it, and I got to wondering after I saw him buried, ‘what are the things that stay above the ground?’ The old man never gave me another talk like that.”

After a few seconds Galorey put in:

“But, my dear chap, you did give me a shock up there just now when you said you were going to spend ‘all your money on some girl.’”

The millionaire took a chestnut from his pocket. He held it high above his head and the little dog that had been yelping at his heels fixed his eyes on it. Blair poised it, then threw it as far as he could. It sped through the air and the terrier ran like mad across the park.

“I like girls awfully, Gordon, and when I find the right one, why, then I’m going to feel what a bully thing it is to be rich.”

Lord Galorey groaned aloud.

“My dear chap!” he exclaimed.

The spell of the day, the fragrant beauty of the time and place and hour were clearly upon Dan Blair. Lord Galorey was sympathetic to him. The terrier came tearing back with the chestnut held between his thick jaws. Dan bent down to take the nut from the dog and wrestled with him gently.

“Swell little grip he’s got. Nice old pup! Let it go now!” And he threw the nut far again, and as the terrier ran once more Blair thrust his hands down in his pockets and began softly to whistle the tune of Mandalay.

He said slowly, going back to his subject: “It must be great to feel that a fellow can give her jewels like the Duchess of Breakwater’s, ropes of ’em”—he nodded toward the house—“and a fine old place like this now, and motors and yachts and all kinds of stuff.”

His eyes rested on the suave lines of the Elizabethan house, with its softened gables and its banked terraces. Possibly his vivid imagination pictured “some nice girl” there waiting, as they should come up, to meet him.

“I have always thought it would be bully to find a poor girl—pretty as a peach, of course—one who had never had much, and just cover her with things. Hey, there!” he cried to the terrier, who had come running back, “bring it to me.”

They had come up to the terrace by this, and Dan’s confidence, fresh as a gush of water from a rock, had ceased. His face was placid. He didn’t realize what he had said.

From out of one of the long windows, dressed in a sable coat, her small head tied up in a motor scarf, the Duchess of Breakwater appeared. She greeted them severely, and Lord Galorey hear her say under her breath to Dan:

“You promised to be back to drive with me before dinner, Dan. Did you forget?”

And as Galorey left the boy to make his peace, the first smile of amusement broke over his face. He felt that the duchess had between her and her capture of Dan Blair’s heart the elusive picture of some “nice girl”—not much perhaps, but it might be very hard to tear away the picture of the ideal that was ever before the blue eyes of this man who had a fortune to spend on her!