understand you."

For just a few moments, he hesitated. There was within him the feeling that he would outrage Patricia's ideas of the fitness of things, if he should take Beatrice Brunswick into his confidence and relate to her all that had occurred this afternoon and evening. But, on the other hand, he saw in this beautiful girl a personification of the straw at which a drowning man grasps. He knew that she was, personally, closer to Patricia than any other friend had been, and that she understood Patricia better than did anyone else, save Stephen Langdon, perhaps. He knew, also, that he could trust her, and that he could rely, implicitly, upon her loyalty. He knew that she would never betray the secrets he would be obliged to tell concerning Stephen Langdon's affairs. He had tried her often, and he had never found her wanting. Therefore, he felt that the greatest secret of all, concerning the financial extremity in which Stephen Langdon had become involved, would be safe with Beatrice Brunswick. Manlike, he began very stupidly and very strangely.

"By Jove, Beatrice!" he exclaimed. "I wish I might have fallen in love with you, instead of with Patricia! You would never have seen things in the light she does!"

Beatrice's eyes widened and deepened; then, they narrowed so that she almost frowned. She bit her lips with vexation, and for an instant was angry. At last, she laughed. She did not wish him to know how deeply he had wounded her by that careless statement, so she uttered a care-free ripple of laughter.

"I don't quite know whether I should take that as a compliment or not," she replied. "It is more than likely that I would have conducted myself very much worse than Patricia has done in this affair which you have not as yet explained to me. Perhaps, it is a fortunate thing for both of us that you did not fall in love with me, instead of her. I'm sure I don't know what I should have done with you, in such a case. But I will help you if I can; only, understand in the beginning that if you tell me the story at all, you must tell me all of it. I don't want any half-confidences, Roderick."

Duncan did tell her all of it then, leaving nothing to be added, when he had finished; and she listened to the end of his tale in utter silence, with her head half-turned away and her chin supported by the palm of one of her jeweled hands. They did not move to the front of the box again, nor give any heed to the rise of the curtain or to what was taking place on the stage, during the ensuing act. Duncan talked straight on, through 

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