in the cab of the 926 had planted a seed which threatened to germinate quickly in the warmth of the present discussion.

"I'm not quite sure that I understand you," she said, picking and choosing among the phrases for the least incendiary. "Would you mind telling me in so many words, just what you mean?"

"Not in the least. A year ago you met this young man in a most casual way, and—to put it rather brutally—fell in love with him. I haven't the slightest idea that he cares anything for you in your proper person, or that he would have thrust himself upon us to-day if he had known that your private fortune hangs upon the event of your marriage under certain conditions which you evidently purpose to ignore. If, after the object-lesson you had at the dinner-table this evening, you still prefer this young fortune-hunter to your cousin Chester, I presume we shall all have to submit; but you ought at least to tell us what we are to expect."

If he had spared the epithets, she could have laughed at the baseless fabric of supposition, but the contemptuous sentence passed upon Brockway put her quickly upon his defence, and, incidentally, did more to further that young man's cause than any other happening of that eventful day.

"I suppose you have a right to say and think what you please about me," she said, trying vainly to be dispassionate; "but you might spare Mr. Brockway. He didn't invite himself to dinner; and it was I who proposed the walk on the platform and the ride on the engine."

"Humph! you are nothing if not loyal. Nevertheless, I wish you might look the facts squarely in the face."

Gertrude knew there were no facts, of the kind he meant, but his persistence brought forth fruit after its kind, and she stubbornly resolved to neither affirm nor deny. Wherefore she said, a little stiffly:

"I'm quite willing to listen to anything you wish to say."

"Then I should like to ask if you have counted the cost. Assuming that this young man's intentions are unmercenary—and I doubt that very much—it isn't possible that there can be anything in common between you. The social world in which you move, and that to which he belongs, are as widely separated as the poles. I do not say yours is the higher plane, or his the lower—though I may have my own opinion as to that—but I do say they are vastly different; and the woman who knowingly marries out of her class has much to answer for. Admitting that you will do no worse than this, how can you 

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