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"What would you do, then?"

"I?" he asked, disturbed "What could I do?"

"Why, I suppose," she said slowly, "you'd have to h, "I should think you'd be scared into prudence by the prospect"

"I a down

"Not at that prospect?" he said jestingly

She looked up at him; and he remembered afterward the poise of her s; ree and sincerity

"I aravely

Gravity fell upon hiirl's eyes there was no evasion For a long while he had felt vaguely that matters were not perfectly balanced between them At moments, even, he had felt an indefinable uneasiness in her presence The situation troubled hih he had known her froaries of infor of convention, and the unembarrassed terms of her speech, his coe, sure to involve even such a privileged girl as she in some unpleasantness

This troubled him; and now, partly sceptical, yet partly conscious, too, of her very frank liking for hi to credit her with any deeper rown pink and restless under his gaze, using her cigarette frequently, and continually flicking the ashes to the floor, until the little finger of her glove was blackened

But courage characterised her race It had required more than he knew for her to come into his house; and now that she was there loyalty to her professed principles--that a es--forced her to face the consequences of her theory in the practise

She had, with cal That was a concession to her essential womanhood and a cowardice on her part; and, lest she turn utterly traitor to herself, she faced hilad to marry you--if you c-cared to," she said

"Marion!"

"Yes?"

"Oh--I--it is--of course it's a joke"

"No; I'm serious"

"Serious! Nonsense!"

"Please don't say that"

He looked at her, appalled

"But I--but you don't love--can't be in love withon either end of her riding-crop, she bent her knee against it, balancing there, looking straight at him

"I meant to tell you so," she said, "if you didn't tellSo I've told you"