"That central span," confirmed Griffith.

"If you consider Blake sufficiently reliable, you can give him detailed instructions and send him up to take charge."

"How about Ashton's contract?"

"He'll be satisfied with the glory. Reports will continue to name him as Resident Engineer. If he won't listen to reason, I'll ask his father to drop him a line. The young fool has had his allowance cut twice already. He'd consider his pay as engineer a bare pittance."

"Heir to the Ashton millions, eh?" croaked Griffith.

"If I know George Ashton, he has a good safe will drawn, providing that his fortune is to be held in trust. That fool boy won't have any chance to squander more than his allowance,—and he won't keep me now from paying off this obligation to Blake."

"Perhaps not. I'm not so sure, though, that Tom will—One thing's certain. He won't go up to Michamac right away."

"He won't? Why not? It's just the time for him to get the run of things, now while there's no work going on."

"He'd catch on quick enough. It's not that. Fact is, he's got hold of something a lot bigger, and I know he'll not quit till he has either won out or it has downed him. Never knew of but one thing that ever downed him."

Mr. Leslie glared at the engineer, his face reddening with rage.

"Something bigger!" he repeated. "So the fellow has bragged about it!"

Griffith stared back, perplexed by the other's sudden heat. "Guess we've got our wires crossed," he said. "I told him, of course. He didn't know anything about it."

"What you talking about?" demanded Mr. Leslie, puzzled in turn.

"The Zariba Dam."

"That!" exclaimed Mr. Leslie, and his face cleared. "H'm,—what about the dam?"

"I had about thrown it up. I'm giving Tom a go at it."

Mr. Leslie's eyebrows bristled in high curves.

"What! wasting time with a man like that? If you've given it up, we'll try England or Europe."

"No use. Plenty of good men over there. They can give us pointers on some things. But if they've ever done anything just like this Zariba Dam, they've kept it out of print."

"But an unknown second-rate engineer!"

"That's what's said of every first-rater till he gets his chance."

"You're serious?"

"I don't guarantee he can do it. I do say, I won't be any too surprised if he pulls it off. It's a thing that calls for invention. He'll swear he hasn't an ounce of it in him—says he just happens to blunder on things, or applies what he has picked up. All gas! He once showed me some musty old drawings that made it look like one of his grandfathers ought to be credited with the basic inventions of a dozen machines that to-day are making the owners of the patent-rights rich. Guess some of that grandfather's bump can be located on Tom's head."

"Inventor—h'm—inventor!" muttered Mr. Leslie half to himself. "That puts rather a different face on that bridge matter."

"As how?" casually asked Griffith, beginning to scrape afresh at his pipe-bowl.

Mr. Leslie considered, and replied with another question: "At the time of the competition in plans for the bridge, did you know that Blake was to be a contestant?"

"He writes letters about as often as a hen gets a tooth pulled. But I got a letter the time you mention,—a dozen lines or so, with another added, saying that he was in for a whirl at the Michamac cantilever."

"You've shown him Ashton's bridge plans?"

"Not yet. He's been too busy on the Zariba field books."

"You've seen his own plans for the bridge?"

"No. They were lost."

"The originals, I mean—his preliminary copy. He must have kept something."

"Yes. But I guess they're pretty wet by now," replied Griffith, his face crackling with dry humor. "They're aboard that steamer, down on the African coast. If you want to see them, you might finance a wrecking expedition. But Tom says she went down mast-under, and there are plenty of sharks nosing along the coral reef."

Mr. Leslie winced at the word sharks, and reluctantly admitted: "I've had a long talk with my daughter. He played the part of a man. I acknowledge that I've held a strong prejudice against him. It seems, however, that in part I've been mistaken."

"Now you're talking, Mr. Leslie!"

"Only in part, I say—about his lost bridge plans. I had thought he was trying to blackmail me."

"More apt to be a black eye, if you let him know you thought that," was Griffith's dry comment.

"He came near to resorting to violence. As I look at it now, I can't say I blame him. Those bridge plans, though—Knowing this about his inventiveness, has it not occurred to you that his plans may not have been lost, after all?"

"Look here, Mr. Leslie," said Griffith, rising with the angularity of a jumping-jack, "we've rubbed along pretty smooth since we got together last year; but Tom Blake is my friend."

"Sit down! sit down!" insisted Mr. Leslie. "You ought to see by this time that I'm trying to prove myself anything but an enemy to him."

Griffith sat down and began mechanically to load his pipe with the formidable Durham. Mr. Leslie put the tips of his fingers together, coughed, and went on in a lowered tone. "Those plans disappeared. His charge was preposterous, ridiculous—as against me. Yet if the plans were not lost, what became of them? He told me yesterday that he himself handed them to the person who was at that time acting as my secretary. You catch the point?"

"Um-m," grunted Griffith, his face as emotionless as a piece of crackled wood.

"Young Ashton was my secretary. He resigned the next day. Said he had been secretly working on plans for the Michamac cantilever; thought he had solved the problem of the central span; might go ahead and put in his plans if none of the competitors were awarded the bridge. Within a month he did put in plans."

"Well?" queried Griffith.

"Don't you make the connection?" demanded Mr. Leslie. "Blake handed his plans to Ashton, and took no receipt. The plans disappeared. Ashton leaves; comes back in a month with plans that he hasn't the skill to apply in the construction of the bridge—plans include an entirely new modification of bridge trusses—stroke of inventive genius, you called it."

Griffith's lean jaw dropped. "You—you don't mean to say he—the son of George Ashton—that he could—God A'mighty, he's heir to twenty millions!"

"You don't believe it? Suppose you knew he was about to be cut off without a cent? George had stood about all he could from the young fool. Those bridge plans came in just in time to prevent the drawing of a new will."

The hand in which Griffith held his pipe shook as if he had been seized with a fever chill, but his voice was dry and emotionless. "That accounts for those queer slips and errors in the plans. He couldn't even make an accurate copy, and was too much afraid of being found out to take time to check Tom's drawings. Jammed them into his fireplace soon's he'd finished. The thief!—the infernal thief!—the—!" Griffith spat out a curse that made even Mr. Leslie start.

"Good Lord, Griffith," he remonstrated. "That's the first time I ever heard you swear."

"I keep it for dirt! ... Well, what you going to do about it?"

"I am going to have you show Ashton's plans to Blake. If he recognizes them as a copy of his own—"

"Better get ready to ship Laffie out of the country. Once saw Tom manhandle a brute who was beating his wife—one of those husky saloon bouncers. The wife had a month's nursing to do. Tom will pound that— that sneak to pulp."

"Show him the plans. If he recognizes them, I'll let the thief know he has been found out. He'll run, and we'll be rid of him without any scandal. We'll arrange for Blake to get the credit for the bridge, after a time. George Ashton and I are rather close together. I don't want him to be hit harder than's necessary."

"Say, Mr. Leslie, I don't mind admitting you are square!" exclaimed Griffith. "You don't like Tom, and you know he hasn't a line of proof. It would be only his word against Laffie's. Unknown engineer trying to blackmail the son of George Ashton. You know what would be said."

"I told you, I owe him a debt. I intend to pay it in full."

"One thing though," cautioned Griffith. "Even a cornered rat will fight. There's the chance that Laffie may not run. He'd be a drivelling idiot if he did, with his father's millions at stake. Don't forget we've no proof. It won't look even possible to outsiders. Suppose I hold off showing Tom those plans till we see if he can make it on the Zariba Dam? If he pulls that off, no engineer in the U. S. will doubt his claims to the bridge."

"That means a delay," said Mr. Leslie irritably. "My first plan was to send Blake to Michamac at once."

"Lord! With one cantilever finished and the other out to the central span—if it's Tom's bridge, he'd recognize it as quick as his plans. And if he did—well, I'd not answer for what would happen to that damn thief."

"H'm—perhaps you're right," considered Mr. Leslie. He thought a moment, and added with quick decision, "Very well. Keep him on at the dam. What are you paying him?"

"Two hundred."

"Double it."

"No go. He'd suspect something."

"Suspect, would he? H'm—several expert engineers have failed on that dam. If it can be put through, the project will net me a half-million. Ten per cent of my profits might stimulate you engineers. I offer fifty thousand dollars as reward to the man who solves the problem of the Zariba Dam."

"Say, that's going some!" commented Griffith.

"Plain business proposition. If I can't get it done for wages, it is cheaper to pay a bonus than to have the project fail."

"Good way to put it," admitted Griffith. "Don't just know, though, what I'll do with all that money."

"You? Thought you said that Blake—"

"D'you suppose he'd take a cent of it? He's working for me."

"But if he does the work?"

"He might accept the credit. The cash would come to me, if he had to cram it down my throat. He won't touch your money."

"Crazy fool!" rasped Mr. Leslie. Again he paused to consider, and again he spoke with quick decision. "The Coville Company takes over the project. I don't believe the dam can be built; I'm tired of the whole thing. So I unload on the Coville Company. You see? The company offers the fifty thousand bonus as a last hope. It hires Blake direct on some of its routine work. You insist that he try for the dam, between times."

"That's the ticket!" said Griffith. "We'll try it on him."

"Then call by the Coville office. I'll phone over for them to have the transfer made and a letter waiting for you," said Mr. Leslie, and he jerked out his watch.

Griffith rose at the signal. He fumbled for a moment with his hat and gloves, and spoke with a queer catch in his voice. "I'd like to—let you know how I—appreciate—"

"No call for it! no call for it!" broke in Mr. Leslie. "Good-day!"

He whirled about to his desk and caught up the receiver of one of his private-line telephones.



CHAPTER XIV

BETWEEN FRIENDS

Lord James sauntered into the office of Griffiths, C.E., and inquired for Mr. Blake. The cleric stared in vague recognition, and answered that Mr. Blake was busy. Nothing daunted, the visitor crossed to the door toward which the clerk had glanced.

When he entered, he found Blake in his shirtsleeves, humped over a small desk. He was intently absorbed in comparing the figures of two field books and in making little pencil diagrams.

"Hello, old man. What's the good word?" sang out his lordship.

Blake nodded absently, and went on with his last diagram. When he had finished it, he looked up and perceived his friend standing graceful and debonair in the centre of the room.

"Why, hello, Jimmy," he said, as if only just aware of the other's presence. "Can't you find a chair?"

"How's the dam?"

"Dam 'fi 'no," punned Blake. He slapped his pencil down on the desk, and flung up his arms to stretch his cramped body.

"You need a breather," advised Lord James.

"Young Ashton came 'round to my hotel last evening. Wanted me to go to some bally musical comedy—little supper afterward with two of the show-girls—all that. I had another engagement. He then asked me to drop around this morning and take my pick of his stable. Wants me to ride one of his mounts while I'm here, you know. Suppose you come up- town with me and help me pick out a beast."

"No," said Blake. "Less I see of that papa's boy the better I'll like him."

"Oh, but as a fellow-engineer, y'know," minced Lord James.

"You love him 'bout as much as I do."

Lord James adjusted the pink carnation in his lapel, and casually remarked: "You'll be calling at the Leslies' this afternoon, I daresay."

"No," said Blake.

"Indeed?" exclaimed the younger man. He flushed and gazed confusedly at Blake, pleased on his own account, yet none the less distressed for his friend.

Blake explained the situation with sober friendliness. "It's all up in the air, Jimmy. I've got to make good, and she won't promise anything even if I succeed."

"Not even if you succeed?" Lord James was bewildered.

"Can't say I blame her, since I've had time to think it over," said Blake. "If it was you, for instance, she might have a show to get some happiness out of life, even with the whiskey. But think of her tied up to me, whiskey or no whiskey!"

"You'll down the habit this time, old man."

Blake smiled ironically. "That's what you've said every time. It's what I've said myself, every time since I woke up to what the cursed sprees meant. No; don't be afraid. You'll have your chance soon enough. She has cut me clean off from outside help. She wouldn't even give me so much as a 'good luck to you'!"

"She wouldn't? But of course you know that she wishes it."

"Does she? But that's not the point. She's made me believe she isn't sure of her—of her feelings toward me. Don't think I blame her. I don't. She's right. If I can't stand up and fight it out and win, without being propped up by my friends, I ought to lose out. I'm not fit to marry any woman—much less her."

Lord James tugged and twisted at his mustache, and at last brought out his reply: "Now, I—I say, you look here, old chap, you've got to win this time. It means her, y'know. You must win."

"Jimmy," stated Blake, his eyes softening, "you're the limit!"

"You're not!" flashed back his friend. "There's no limit to you—to what you can do."

"Heap of good it does—your saying it," grumbled Blake.

"This—er—situation won't prevent your calling at the Leslies', I hope."

"I'm not so sure," considered Blake. "Leastways you won't see me there till I begin to think I see a way to figure out this dam."

Lord James swung a leg over the corner of the desk and proceeded to light a cigarette. Through the haze of the first two puffs he squinted across at the glum face of his friend, and said: "Don't be an ass. She hasn't told you not to call."

"No," admitted Blake. "Just the same, she said she wouldn't give me any help."

"That doesn't bar you from calling. The sight of her will keep you keen."

"I tell you, I'm not going near her house till I think I've a show to make good on this dam."

"Then you'll lunch with me and make an early call at the Gantrys'. Miss Dolores requested me to give you an urgent invitation."

"Excuse me!" said Blake. "No High Society in mine."

"You'll come," confidently rejoined his friend. "You owe it to Miss Genevieve."

Blake frowned and sat for some moments studying the point. Lord James had him fast.

"Guess you've nailed me for once," he at last admitted. "Rather have a tooth pulled, though."

"I say, now, you got along swimmingly at Ruthby."

"With your father. He wasn't a Chicago society dame."

"Oh, well, you must make allowances for the madam. Miss Dolores explained to me that 'Vievie has only to meet people in order to be received, but mamma has to keep butting in to arrive—that's why she cultivates her grand air.'"

"No sham about Miss Dolores!" approved Blake.

"Right-o! You'll come, I take it. What if the dragon does have rather a frosty stare for you? She said I might bring you to call. Seriously, Tom, you must learn to meet her without showing that her manner flecks you. Best kind of training for society. As I said just now, you owe it to Miss Genevieve."

"Well—long as you put it that way," muttered Blake.

"You'll get along famously with Miss Dolores, I'm sure," said Lord James. "She's quite a charming girl,—vivacious and all that, you know. She's taken quite a fancy to you. The mother is one of those silly climbers who never look below the surface. You have twice my moral stamina, but just because I happen to have a title and some polish—"

"Don't try to gloze it over," cut in Blake. "Let's have it straight. You're a thoroughbred. I'm a broncho."

"Mistaken metaphor," rejoined his friend. "I'm a well-bred nonentity. You're a diamond in the rough. When once you've been cut and polished—"

"Then the flaws will show up in great shape," gibed Blake.

"Never think it, old man! There is only one flaw, and that will disappear with the one cutting required to bring the stone to the best possible shape."

"Stow it!" ordered Blake. The rattling of the doorknob drew his gaze about. "Here's Grif, back at last. He's been to chin with Papa Leslie." He squinted aggressively at the older engineer, who entered with his usual air of seeming absorption in the performance of his most trivial actions. "Hello, you Injin! Gone into partnership with H. V.? You've been there all morning."

"Other way 'round, if anything," answered Griffith. He nodded cordially in response to the greeting of Lord James, and began rummaging in his pockets as he came over to the desk. "Now, where's that letter? Hey?—Oh, here it is." He drew out a long envelope, and started to open it in a precise, deliberate manner.

"So he fired you, eh?" rallied Blake.

"In a way," said Griffith, peering at the paper in his hand. "It seems he's unloaded the Zariba project onto the Coville Company."

"Thought it couldn't be put through, eh?" said Blake. "Bet he didn't let it go for nothing, though."

"It's not often he comes out at the little end of the horn," replied Griffith. "Didn't take the Coville people long to wake up to the situation. Look here."

Blake took the opened letter, which was headed with the name and officers of the Coville Construction Company. He read it through with care, whistled, and read it through the second time.

"Well, what you think of it?" impatiently demanded Griffith.

"Whee! They sure must think H. V. has left them to hold the bag. Fifty thousand bonus to the engineer that shows 'em how the dam can be built!"

"Strict business," croaked Griffith. "The company is stuck if they quit. Fifty thousand is only ten per cent of their net profits if the project goes through. Wish I had a show at it."

"Well, haven't you? It says any engineer."

"I had quit before you came, only I didn't like to own up to H. V."

"You needn't yet a while. I'll keep digging away at it. If I put it through, we divvy up. I'm working for you. See?"

"Not on your life, Tommy! I don't smouge on another man's work."

"Well, then, we'll say I'm to split it because you put me next to the chance."

"No go. I've no use for three-fourths of what I'm making nowadays. It's just piling up on me. Look here. I happened to speak about you to the Coville people—looking ahead, you know. They want me to try you out on some work I'm too busy to do myself. It's not much, and they offer only one-fifty a month as a starter, but it may lead to something better than I can do for you."

"Yes, that's so," considered Blake.

"It is checking field work reports that come in slowly this time of year. That's the only trouble. You'll be sitting around doing nothing half the time—that is, unless you're fool enough to waste any more time on this dam' dam."

"Waste time?" cried Blake, his eyes flashing. "Watch me! Wait till you get your next bill for electric lights! You've given me my cue, Grif. I'm going to buck through this little proposition in one-two-three style, grab my fifty thousand, and plunge into the New York Four Hundred as Tommy Van Damdam. Clear out, you hobos. I'm going to work!"

"Don't forget I've got you on for lunch and Mrs. Gantry's," reminded Lord James.

Blake paused, pencil in hand. "Aw, say, Jimmy, you'll have to let me off now."

"Can't do it, old man, really."

"At least that infernal call."

"No, you've got to get used to it. Tell you what, I'll let you off on the lunch if you'll be at my hotel at four sharp. Don't squirm. That gives you as many hours to grind as are good for you at one stretch. If you try to funk it, I'll hold you for both lunch and call. Your social progress is on my conscience."

"Huh!" rejoined Blake. "Don't wish you any hard luck, but if you and your conscience were in—"

"Four sharp, remember!" put in Lord James, dodging from the room.

Griffith followed him closely and shut the door.

"I'm not so busy, Mr. Scarbridge. Step into my private office and have a cigar," he invited, and as Lord James hesitated, he added in a lower tone, "Want your idea about him."

Lord James at once went with the engineer into his office.

"You wish to speak about Tom? "he said.

"Yes. Did you notice that look about his eyes? It's the first sign."

"Oh, no! let us hope not, Mr. Griffith. I happen to know he has suffered a severe disappointment. It may be that."

"Well, maybe. I hope so," said Griffith dubiously. With innate delicacy, he refrained from any inquiry as to the nature of Blake's disappointment. As he handed out his box of cigars, he went on, "I don't quite like it, though. He's a glutton for field work, but this indoors figuring soon sets him on edge. He can't stand being cooped up." "Count on me to do all I can to get him out."

"Yes, I'm figuring on you, Mr. Scarbridge. He's told me all about you. Between the two of us, we might stave it off and keep him going for months. Wish I knew more about the girl—Miss Leslie. If she's the right sort, there's just a chance of something being done that I gave up as being impossible, last time he was with me—he might be straightened out for good."

"It's possible, quite possible! Others have been cured,—why not he?" exclaimed Lord James, his face aglow with boyish enthusiasm. But as suddenly it clouded. "Ah, though, most unfortunate—this stand of Miss Leslie's!"

"What about her?" queried Griffith, as the other hesitated.

"She has told him that he must win out absolutely on his own strength, without her aid or sympathy."

"Well, I'll be—switched! Thought she loved him."

Lord James flushed, yet answered without hesitancy. "It is to be presumed she does, otherwise she would not have forced this test upon him."

"How d' you make that out?"

"Mere grateful interest in his welfare would have been satisfied by the assurance of his material success. On the other hand, her—ah— feeling toward him is at present held in restraint by her acute judgment. She had reason to esteem him in that savage environment. She now realizes that he must win her esteem in her own proper environment. She is not merely a young lady—she is a lady. Her rare good sense tells her that she must not accept him unless he proves himself fit."

"He's a lot fitter than all these lallapaloozer papa's boys and some of their fathers,—all those empty-headed swells that are called eligibles," rejoined Griffith.

"It's not a question of polish or culture, believe me. She is far too clever to doubt that he would acquire that quickly enough. My reference was to this one flaw, which may yet shatter him. The question is whether it penetrates too deep into his nature. If not—if he can rid himself of it—then even I admit that he would make her happy."

"Yet she won't lift a finger to help him fight it out?"

"Courage is the fundamental virtue in a man. It includes moral strength. If she cannot be sure of his strength, she will always doubt him and her love for him."

"Can't see it that way. If she helped him, and he won out, he'd be cured, wouldn't he?"

"I've been trying to guess at a woman's reason, but I'm not so rash as to attempt to argue the matter," said Lord James. He picked up his hat and held out a cordial hand to the engineer. "She may or may not be right. I'm not altogether certain as to the intuitive wisdom of women. However that may be, we at least shall do our best to pull him through."

"That's talking, Mr. Scarbridge!" exclaimed Griffith.



CHAPTER XV

BY-PLAY

Promptly at four that afternoon Blake was shown to the rooms of his friend at the hotel. He entered with a glum look not altogether assumed.

"Well, here I am," he grumbled. "Hope you're satisfied. You're robbing me of the best part of the day."

"I daresay," cheerfully assented Lord James. "Now look pleasant till I see if you're dressed."

"No, I haven't a thing on. Just clothed in sunshine and a sweet smile," growled Blake, throwing open his raincoat to show his suit of rough gray homespun. "You don't ever get me into that skirty coat again. I can stand full dress, but not that afternoon horror-gown. I'm no minister."

"Don't fash yourself, old man. At least you've been tailored in London, and that's something. You'll do—in Chicago."

"I'll do O.K. right here," said Blake. "What say? You've spoiled my afternoon. We'll call it quits if you settle down with me and put in the time chinning about things."

"Tammas, I'm shocked at you," reproved Lord James. "You cannot wish to disappoint Mrs. Gantry, really!"

"Mrs. Gantry be—"

"No, no! Do not say it, my deah Tammas! When one is in Society, y'know, one is privileged to think it, but it's bad form to express it so—ah—broadly—ah—I assure you."

He adjusted his monocle and stared with a vacuous blandness well calculated to madden his friend. Blake hurled a magazine, which his lordship deftly sidestepped. He reached for his hat, and faced Blake with boyish eagerness.

"Come on, Tom. Chuck the rotting. We're wasting time."

"Must have a taxicab waiting for you," bantered Blake.

"No, a young lady. Miss Dolores is really eager to become acquainted with you, and—er—she may have a friend or two—"

"Excuse me!"

"Tammas the quitter!"

Lord James started for the door, and Blake followed him, striving hard to maintain his surly look. At the street entrance he sought to postpone the coming ordeal by urging his need for exercise.

"Don't worry. I'll pay," said Lord James, pretending to misunderstand, and he raised his finger to the chauffeur of the nearest cab. "You can walk home, if you wish to save pennies. Now, you know, we desire to reach Mrs. Gantry's as soon as possible."

"Yes, we do!" growled Blake.

He seemed more than ever determined to remain in his glum mood, and the pleasant badinage of his friend during their run out to Lincoln Park Boulevard rather increased than lessened his surliness. When they entered through the old Colonial portal of the Gantry home, he jerked off his English topcoat unaided, contemptuously spurning the assistance of the buff-and-yellow liveried footman. But as they were announced, he assumed what Lord James termed his "poker face," and entered beside his friend, with head well up and shoulders squared.

"Good boy! Keep it up," murmured Lord James. "She'll take you for a distinguished personage."

Blake spoiled the effect by a grin, which, an instant later, was transformed into a radiant smile at sight of Genevieve beside Mrs. Gantry.

Dolores came darting to meet them, her black eyes sparkling and her lithe young body aquiver with animation.

"Oh, Lord Avondale!" she cried. "So you did make him come. Mr. Blake, why didn't you call at once?"

"Wasn't asked," answered Blake, his eyes twinkling.

"You are now. So please remember to come often. Never fear mamma. I'll protect you. Oh, I'm just on tiptoe to see you in those skin things you wore in Africa. I made Vievie put on her leopard-skin gown, and I think it's the most terrible romantic thing! And now I'm just dying to see your hyena-skin trousers and those awful poisoned arrows and—"

"Dolores!" admonished Mrs. Gantry.

"Oh, piffle!" complained the girl, drawing aside for the men to pass her.

Even Mrs. Gantry was not equal to the rudeness of snubbing a caller in her own house—when she had given an earl permission to bring him. But the contrast between her greetings of the two men was, to say the least, noticeable.

Blake met her supercilious bearing toward him with an impassiveness that was intended to mask his contemptuous resentment. But Genevieve saw and understood. She rose and quietly remarked: "You'll excuse us, Aunt Amice. I wish Mr. Blake to see the palm room. I fancy it will carry him back to Mozambique."

Mrs. Gantry's look said that she wished Mr. Blake could be carried back to Mozambique and kept there. Her tongue said: "As you please, my dear. Yet I should have thought you'd had quite enough of Africa for a lifetime."

"One never can tell," replied Genevieve with a coldness that chilled the glow in Blake's eyes.

They went out side by side yet perceptibly constrained in their bearing toward one another.

Dolores flung herself across the room and into a chair facing her mother and Lord James.

"Did you see that?" she demanded. "I do believe Vievie is the coldest blooded creature! When she knows he's just dying for love of her! Why, I never—"

"That will do!" interrupted Mrs. Gantry.

"I'll leave it to Lord Avondale. Isn't it the exact truth?"

"Er—he still looks rather robust," parried Lord James.

"You know what I mean. But I didn't think she'd behave in this dog-in- the-manger fashion. She might have at least given me a chance for a tete-a-tete with him, even if he is her hero."

"I am only too well aware what Lord Avondale will think of you, going on in this silly way," observed Mrs. Gantry.

"If Lord Avondale doesn't like me and my manners, he needn't. Need you, Mr. Scarbridge?"

"But how can I help liking you?" asked the young Englishman with such evident sincerity that the girl was disconcerted. She flashed a bewildered glance into his earnest face, and turned quickly away, her cheeks scarlet with confusion.

"Ah, Earl," purred her mother, "I fully appreciate your kindness. She is Genevieve's cousin. You are therefore pleased to disregard her gaucheries."

"Ho! so that's it?" retorted Dolores. "Lord Avondale needn't trouble to disregard anything about me."

"Believe me, I do not, Miss Gantry," replied Lord James. "I find you most charming."

"Because I'm Vievie's cousin! Well, if you wish to know what I think, I think all Englishmen are simply detestable!" cried the girl, and she sprang up and flounced away, her face crimson with anger.

"You had better go straight to your room," reproved her mother.

The girl promptly dodged the doorway for which she was headed, and veered around to a window, where she turned her back on them and perched herself on the arm of a chair.

Mrs. Gantry sighed profoundly. "A-a-ah! Was ever a mother so tried! Such temper, such perversity! Her father, all over again!"

"If you'll permit me to offer a suggestion," ventured Lord James, "may it not be that you drive with rather too taut a rein?"

"Too taut! Can you not see? The slightest relaxation, and I should have a runaway."

"But a little freedom to canter? It's this chafing against the bit. So high spirited, you know. I must confess, it's that which I find most charming about her."

"Impossible! You cannot realize."

"Then, too, her candor—one of the rarest and most admirable traits in a woman."

"Simply terrible! That she should fling her—opinion of you in your face!"

"Better that than the usual insincerity in such cases of dislike. It gives me reason to hope that eventually I can win her friendship."

"Your kindness is more than I can ever repay!"

"You can by granting me a single favor."

"Indeed?" Mrs. Gantry raised her eyebrows in high arches.

"By receiving my friend as my friend."

"Ah! Had you not asked permission to bring him, he would not have been received at all."

"Not even as the man who saved your niece?"

"That is an obligation to be discharged by her father."

"I see. Very well, then. Regarding him simply as my friend, I ask you to consider that he is undergoing a most difficult, I may say, cruel test. He must overcome something that he has vainly fought for years— something that has crushed many of the greatest intellects the world has known."

"The more reason for me to save Genevieve from ruin. From what you say, I imply that it is a hopeless case of degeneracy."

"Not hopeless; and degenerate in that respect alone—if you must insist on the term."

"I do insist."

"What if he should succeed in overcoming it?"

"He cannot. Even should he seem to, there will always be a weakness to be feared."

"Is that just?"

"It is just to Genevieve."

"Everything for Vievie, coronet included!" called Dolores over her shoulder.

Mrs. Gantry's English complexion deepened to the purple of mortification. The frank smile that told of his lordship's enjoyment of her discomfiture was the last straw. She rose in her stateliest manner.

"I shall leave you a few moments to be entertained by the dear child, since you find her so amusing," she said. "Genevieve must not be permitted to remain too long in the close hot air of the palm room."

"There's some hot air outside the conservatory, mamma," remarked Dolores.

But Mrs. Gantry sailed majestically from the room, without deigning to heed the pleasantry.

Lord James sauntered across to the window and perched himself on a chair arm close before the girl.

"When do you begin?" he asked. "Your mamma said you were to entertain me."

"Best possible reason why I shouldn't," she snapped, staring hard out of the window.

"What if I should try to entertain you?"

"You wouldn't succeed. I wanted to talk to a man. It's too bad! Simply because you asked me to, I was silly enough to tease Vievie into coming over this afternoon—and the minute he comes, she rushes him off to the conservatory."

"Believe me, I regret quite as keenly that she did not take me instead."

"That's complimentary—to me!"

"Can you blame me for agreeing, when you express a preference for the man instead of the mere son of a duke?"

"Perhaps you're a man yourself. Who knows?"

"Quien sabe, Senorita Dolores?" he rallied her. "Tell me how to prove it."

She flashed him a glance of naive coquetry. "You ask how? If I were my great grandmother, you might try to kiss me, and chance a stiletto thrust in return."

"Your great grandmother was an Italian?"

The girl's red lips curled disdainfully. "No, she was Spanish. Though she lived in Mexico, her family were Castilian and related to the royal Valois family of France. So you see how far back it goes. We have the journal of her husband. She married Dr. Robinson, who accompanied Lieutenant Pike on his famous expedition."

"Pike? Leftenant Pike?"

"No, he wasn't 'left.' He came back and became the General Pike who died at the moment of his glorious victory over the English, in the War of 1812."

"Ah, come to think—Pike of Pike's Peak. Never heard of the battle you mention; but as an explorer—So one of his companions married your ancestress?"

"Yes. He must have been another such man as Mr. Blake."

"The kind to risk stiletto thrusts for kisses?"

"Yes. I know I must be exactly like her—that haughty Senorita Alisanda."

"Indeed, yes. I can almost see her dagger up your sleeve."

The girl's black eyes flashed fire. "If it was there, you'd get a good scratch!"

"Believe me," he apologized, "you quite failed to take me."

"It's no question of taking you. I prefer heroes."

"Can't say I blame you. You've all the fire and charm of a Spanish girl, and, permit me to add, the far greater charm of an American girl."

She looked to see if he was mocking her. Finding him unaffectedly sincere, she promptly melted into a most amiable and vivacious though unconventional debutante.



CHAPTER XVI

THE AMARYLLIS

The constraint between Blake and Genevieve had rather increased than lessened when they left the others. Neither spoke until they had passed through the outer conservatory into the tropical heat of the palm room. But there the first whiff of the odor from the moist warm mould brought with it a flood of pungent memories.

"The river jungle," muttered Blake, sniffing. "Air was drier out under the cocoanut palms."

"That first night, in the tree!" murmured Genevieve. "How easily you hauled us up with the vine rope! Ah, then—and now!"

Blake drew away from her, his face darkening. "Hope you don't think I expected to see you here? If Jimmy knew, he didn't tell me."

"How could he know? Dolores did not phone to me until mid-afternoon. But even had you been told, I see no reason why you shouldn't have come."

"You don't?" he asked, his face brightening. "I was afraid you might think I was trying to dodge your conditions. Besides, I had promised myself not to call on you till I thought I saw a way to work out a big piece of engineering that I'm on."

"Then you have a good position? I'm so glad!"

"Not a regular position. But I've been given work and a chance at one of the biggest things in hydraulics—the Zariba Dam, out in Arizona."

"You're not going away?" Calmly as she tried to speak, she could not entirely repress an under-note of apprehension. Slight as was the betrayal of feeling, it enheartened him immensely. He beamed up at the palm crests that brushed the glazed dome.

"Looks like they're going to raise the roof, doesn't it?" he said. "Feel that way myself. Your father unloaded the Zariba project onto the Coville Construction Company, and they've offered a cool fifty thousand dollars to the man that figures out a feasible way to construct the dam. I spoke about it before, you may remember; but this bonus wasn't up then. If I put it through, I'll be recognized as a first-class engineer."

"You will succeed, of course," said Genevieve with perfect confidence in his ability to overcome such a relatively easy difficulty.

"Hope so," responded Blake. "I'm still tunnelling in the dark, though. Not a glimmer of a hole out."

"That is of small concern."

"Isn't it, though? I'm counting on that to boost me along on the other thing. Nothing like a little good luck to keep a fellow braced up."

"But I'm sure you have some Dutch blood,—and you know the Dutch never fight harder than when the odds are against them."

"Then it's too bad I'm not Hans Van Amsterdam. He'd have the scrap of his life."

"Do you mean that the odds are so greatly against you?" asked Genevieve, with sudden gravity.

"What's the use of talking about it?" said Blake, almost brusquely. "If I win, I win; and I'm supposed to believe that is all it means. If I lose, you're rid of me for good."

Genevieve bit her lip and turned her head to hide her starting tears.

"I did not think you would be so bitter over it!" she half sobbed.

"Can't you take a joke?" he demanded. "Great joke!—me thinking I've a ghost of a show of winning you! No; the laugh's on me, all right. Idea of me dreaming I can down that damnable thirst!"

"Tom, you'll not give up—you'll not!" she cried with a fierceness that shook him out of his bitter despondency.

"Give up?" he rejoined. "What d' you take me for? I'll fight—course I'll fight, till I'm down and out. People don't much believe in hell nowadays, Jenny. I do. I've been there. I'm bound to go there again, I don't know how soon. Don't think I'm begging for help or whining. Nobody goes to hell that hasn't got hell in him. He always gets just what's coming to him."

"No, no! It's not fair. I can't bear to hear you blame yourself. There's no justice in it. Both heredity and environment have been against you."

"Justice?" he repeated. He shook his head, with rather a grim smile. "Told you once I worked in a pottery. Supposing the clay of a piece wasn't mixed right, it wasn't the dish's fault if it cracked in the firing. Just the same, it got heaved on the scrap-heap."

Genevieve looked down at her clasped hands and whispered: "May not even a flawed piece prove so unique, so valuable in other respects, that it is cemented and kept?"

Blake laughed harshly. "Ever know a cracked dish to cement itself?"

"This is all wrong! The metaphor doesn't apply," protested the girl. "You're not a lifeless piece of clay; you're a man—you have a free, powerful will."

"That's the question. Have I? Has anybody? Some scientists argue that we're nothing but automatons—the creatures of heredity and environment."

"It's not true. We're morally responsible for all we do—that is, unless we're insane."

"And I'm only dippy, eh?" said Blake.

He moved ahead around the screening fronds of a young areca palm, and came to an abrupt halt, his eyes fixed on an object in the midst of the tropical undergrowth.

"Look here!" he called in a hushed tone.

Genevieve hesitated, and came to him with reluctant slowness. But when she reached his side and saw what it was he was looking at so intently, her cold face warmed with a tender glow, and, unable to restrain her emotion, she pressed her cheek against his arm. He quivered, yet made no attempt to take advantage of her weakness.

"Tom! oh, Tom!" she whispered. "It's exactly the color of the other one!"

"Wish this snake was as easy to smash!" he muttered.

"It will be!" she reassured him. He made no response. After a short silence, she said, "In memory of that, Tom, I wish you would kiss me."

He bent over and touched his lips to her forehead with reverent tenderness. That was all.

When Mrs. Gantry came in on them, they were still standing side by side, but apart, contemplating the great crimson amaryllis blossom. Their attitude and their silence were, however, sufficient to quicken her apprehensions.

"My dear child," she reproached Genevieve, "you should know that this damp mouldy air is not wholesome for you."

"She's right, Miss Jenny," agreed Blake. "It's too much like Mozambique—gets your thoughts muddled. You've failed to do as you said you would. I ought to've gone sooner. Good-day, Mrs. Gantry. Good-day, Miss Jenny."

He turned away with decisive quickness.

"Must you go?" asked Genevieve, with a trace of entreaty that did not escape her aunt.

"Yes," said Blake.

"You'll come to see me soon!"

"Not till I see daylight ahead on the dam. Don't know when that will be. Best I can say is Adios!"

"I trust it will be soon."

"Same here," he responded, and he left the palm room with head down- bent, as if he were already pondering the problem, the solving of which was to free him from the self-imposed taboo of her house.

"My dear Genevieve!" Mrs. Gantry hastened to exclaim. "Why must you encourage the man?"

The girl pointed to the gorgeous blossom of the amaryllis. "That is one reason, Aunt Amice."

"That? What do you mean?"

"Your amaryllis—not the flower itself, but what it stands for to me."

"Still, I do not—"

"Not when you recall what I told you about that frightful puff adder— that I was stooping to pick an amaryllis when the hideous creature struck at me?"

"You mentioned something about a snake, but there was so much else—"

"Yes, it was only once of the many, many times when he proved himself a man. Though the adder only struck the fold of my skirt, I stood paralyzed with horror. Winthrope, as usual, was ineffectual. Tom came running with his club—and then—" The girl paused until the vivid blush that had leaped into her cheeks had ebbed away. "It was not alone his courage but his resourcefulness. Most men would have turned away from the writhing monster, full of loathing. He saw the opportunity to convert what had been a most deadly peril into a source of safety. He sent me away, and extracted the poison for his arrow tips."

"My dear child, I freely admit that he is an admirable savage," conceded Mrs. Gantry.

"Say rather that he was fit to survive in a savage environment. We shall now see him adapt himself to the other extreme."

"Young girls always tend to idealize those whom they chance to fancy." "Chance? Fancy? Dear Aunt Amice, you and papa do not, perhaps cannot, realize that for those many weeks I lived with storm and starvation, sun and fever, serpents and ferocious beasts all striving to destroy me. I saw the hard realities of life, and learned to think. Mentally I am no longer a young girl, but a woman, qualified to judge what her future should be."

The glowing face of her usually composed niece warned Mrs. Gantry to be discreet. She patted the coils of soft hair. "There, there, my dear. Pray do not misunderstand me. All I ask is that you make sure before you commit yourself,—a few months of delay, that you may compare him with the men of our own class."

Genevieve smiled. "I have gone quite beyond that already, Aunt Amice."

"Indeed?" murmured the elder woman. Too tactful to venture further, she placed a ring-crowded hand upon her ample bosom. "It is too close in here. I feel oppressed."

Genevieve readily accompanied her from the conservatory.

Blake had gone, alone, for they found Lord James in the midst of a lively tete-a-tete with Dolores.

At sight of the merry couple, Genevieve paused in the doorway to recall to her companion some previous conversation. "You see, Aunty. Confess now. They would make a perfect couple."

"Nonsense. He would never dream of such a thing, even were you out of his thoughts. What is more, though he seems to have caught her in one of her gay moods, I know that she simply abominates him. She told him as much, within a minute after you left us."

"I'm so sorry!" sighed Genevieve. "At least let us slip out without interrupting them. I must be going, anyway."

"My dear, I have you to consider before Dolores," replied Mrs. Gantry, and she advanced upon the unconscious couple. "Genevieve is going."

Lord James looked about, for the slightest fraction of a moment discomposed. Genevieve perceived the fleeting expression, and hastened to interpose. "Do not trouble. It is so short a distance."

But the Englishman was already bowing to Dolores. The girl turned her back upon him with deliberate rudeness.

"You see!" murmured Mrs. Gantry to Genevieve.

When Lord James and her niece had gone, the outraged dame wheeled upon her daughter. But at the first word, Dolores faced her with such an outblazing of rebellious anger that the mother thought best to defer her lecture.



CHAPTER XVII

ENTRAPPED

On a frosty Sunday morning, some ten days later, Blake came swinging out Lake Shore Drive at a space-devouring stride that soon brought him to the Leslie mansion. He turned in, and the footman, who had received orders regarding him, promptly bowed him in.

After a moment's hesitancy, Blake handed over a calling card. All his previous cards had been printed, with a "C. E." after his name and nothing before it. These social insignia had been ordered for him by Lord James. Blake wondered how the innovation would impress Genevieve.

She presently came down to him, dressed for church but without her hat. He was quick to note the fact. "You're going out. Didn't mean to call at the wrong time."

"No," she replied. "I am going to church, but not until Aunt Amice and Dolores call by for us. That may not be for half an hour. I am very glad to see you. I remember what you said about your next call. This means, does it not, that you believe you can solve the problem of the Zariba Dam?"

"Yes. I sidetracked the proposition four days ago. Had all the facts and factors in my head, but couldn't seem to get anywhere. Well, I hadn't tried to think about the dam since then, but this morning, all of a sudden, the idea came to me."

"You had set your subconscious mind to working," remarked Genevieve. "The ideas of many of the great inventions and discoveries have come that way."

"Don't know about any subconscious mind," said Blake. "But that idea flashed into my head when I wasn't thinking of the dam at all—just like I'd dreamed it."

"You mean 'as if' you'd dreamed it, not 'like,'" said Genevieve, with a look of playful reproof.

"How's that?" he queried. "Never thought that was wrong. But I like your telling me. Is that right?"

"Quite,—grammatically as well as otherwise," she answered, smiling at his soberness. But her tone was as earnest as his. "The speech of a great engineer should be as correct as his figures."

"That's a go!" agreed Blake. "I'll hire a grammar expert just as soon as I work out this dam idea—um—you know what I mean—this idea about the dam. Don't know how long that will take. But I'm pretty sure I've got the thing cinched—else I wouldn't have had the nerve to come here this morning. You'll believe that, Jenny?"

"Of course. Yet there was no reason why you should have remained away even had you not succeeded. I did not mean you to—to take it that way, Tom."

"All right, then. I'll drop around often if it's not against rules."

"You'll come to church with me this morning?"

"Church!" echoed Blake, in mock-tragic fright. "Haven't been inside a church since I don't know when."

"All the more reason why you should go with us now," she argued.

"Us?"

"Aunt Amice always calls by for papa. He is one of the vestrymen of the Cathedral, you know, but he'd never go if aunty did not come for him. We share the same pew. But it's a large one. There'll be room for you."

"Not in the same pew with your aunt and father," rejoined Blake. "It'd take a larger pew than was ever made, to hold them and me."

"Oh, but you must come, Tom. You'll enjoy the music. Here they are now."

"O-ho, Vievie, you in here?" called Dolores, and she darted in upon them. "Goodness! who's the man? Why, it's Mr. Blake. Hail to the hero!"

She pirouetted down to them and shook Blake's hand vigorously, chattering her fastest. "You can't imagine how glad I am to see you. I've had less than half of Jeems, with mamma butting in all the way over. Of course he'll sit between her and Vievie. If you'll come along as my own particular, I'll feed you on chocolates and keep you nudged during the sermon."

"Oh, but I say, Miss Gantry, those were to be my chocolates," protested Lord James from the doorway.

"Hello," said Blake. "So you're the man, are you? Better look out. First thing you know, you'll get roped."

"Roped? What's that?" demanded Dolores.

"Ask Jeems," laughed Blake.

"Er—seems to me I've heard the expression in relation to the term 'steer,'" observed Lord James.

"Oh, something to do with a ship," said the girl.

"Yes, with what the sailormen would call a trim craft. Eh, Jeems?" chuckled Blake.

"You're laughing at me!" accused the girl. "To make up for it, you'll have to come and hold my prayer-book for me. Just think!—a real hero to hold my prayer-book!"

"Excuse me!" objected Blake. "I don't know the places."

"Never mind. We can study the styles quite as well. Vievie, let's hurry on. Mamma has gone up to rout out Uncle Herbert. They'll be late—as usual."

"Well, then, I'll clear the track," said Blake. "Take good care of Jeems for me. Good-bye, Miss Jenny."

"Don't leave, Tom," replied Genevieve. "If you do not wish to go to the Cathedral—"

"We'll all stay home," cut in Dolores.

"What's this about staying home?" came the voice of Mrs. Gantry from the hall.

"Quick, Mr. Blake!" exclaimed Dolores in a stage whisper. "Hide behind me. I'm taller than Vievie."

Her mother came in upon them in time to catch Blake's broadest grin. "Stay at home, indeed! Such a delightful day as—Ah!"

"It is Mr. Blake, Aunt Amice," said Genevieve in a tone that compelled the stiffening matron to bow.

"Well, good-bye," repeated Blake.

"Please wait," said Genevieve. "If you do not wish to go to church, you must stay to—Here's papa."

"Not late this time, am I?" demanded Mr. Leslie, bustling into the room. "All ready, my dear? No, you've not got on your hat. Hello!" He stopped short, staring at Blake. "Didn't know you were to be with us."

"I'm not," said Blake.

"You're not? H'm,—why not? Not afraid of church, are you? Better join us."

Blake stared in open astonishment. "Thanks, I—Not this time, I guess," he replied.

Mr. Leslie seemed about to press the point, but paused and glanced at his watch.

"Please do not wait for me," said Genevieve. "I have decided not to go."

If Blake expected an outburst over this, he had another surprise in store for him. Mrs. Gantry turned away, tight-lipped and high of chin, either too full for utterance or else aware that it was an instant when silence was the better part of diplomacy.

Mr. Leslie followed her, after a half-irritable, half-cordial word to Blake. "Very well, very well. Some other time, then."

As Lord James took his leave of Genevieve with apparent nonchalance, Blake noted an exultant sparkle in the black eyes of Dolores. Yet the look was flatly contradicted by her words as she flounced about toward the door: "You needn't say good-bye, Mr. Scarbridge. You may as well stay right here, since she's not going."

"You see how she rags me," complained Lord James, hastening out after her.

Blake watched them go, his eyes keen with eager observation. He was still staring at the doorway when Genevieve offered banteringly, "A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Blake."

"You'll have to bid higher. Make it a coronet—I mean, half a crown."

"Only half a crown? Why not a crown—the oak crown of the conqueror? You know the Bible verse: 'He that overcometh himself is greater than he that taketh a city.'"

"Can't say as to that; but I've taken in the town, after having failed to overcome," said Blake with bitter humor.

"Tom! You must not speak of your defeats. They are past and of the Past. You must not even think of them. Have you ever been baptized?"

"Baptized? Let's see... Yes, I remember the question was brought up when I came back from my first hoboing and my sisters got me going to the Episcopal Mission. They even persuaded me to join what's called a confirmation class. That's when it had to be proved I'd been baptized."

"Oh, Tom! then you've been confirmed—you're an Episcopalian!"

"I was confirmed. That's not saying I'm an Episcopalian now."

"Have you joined another denomination?"

"No. It was just that my religious streak pinched out, and some years after that I read Darwin and Spencer and Haeckel."

"But that's no reason. If only you had read Drummond first, you'd have seen that true science and true religion are not opposed but are complementary to each other."

"Drummond?" queried Blake. "Never heard of him, that I remember. Anyway, I guess I'm not one of the religious kind. It was only to please my sisters I started in that time."

"But you'll go to church with me now, Tom?"

Blake hesitated. "Thought you told them you'd decided not to go?"

"Not to the Cathedral. There's the little chapel down the street, in which I was confirmed. It's nearer. We could walk. The bishop officiates at the communion this morning, but he is ill; so Mr. Vincent, the vicar, will preach. He's a young clergyman and is said to be as popular with the men of his congregation as with the women. His text to-day for morning service is—No, I'll not tell it to you, but I'm sure you'll find the sermon helpful."

"If you're so anxious to have me go, Jenny, I'll go. But it's to be with you, not because I'm interested in that kind of religion. I don't believe in going to a church every week and whining about being full of sin and iniquity and all that. The people that do it are either hypocrites and don't believe what they are saying, or else it's true, and they ought to go to jail."

Genevieve smiled regretfully. "You and I live in such different worlds. Will you not try to at least look into mine?"

"Well, I'll not sleep during the sermon," promised Blake.

She shook her head at his levity, and left him, to fetch her hat and furs.

When they went out, Blake had no need to stop in the hall. He had brought no overcoat. The first breath of the clear frosty air outside caused her to draw her furs about her graceful throat. She glanced at Blake, and asked with almost maternal concern. "Where's your topcoat? You'll take cold."

"What, a day like this?" he replied. "On a good hustling job I'd call this shirtsleeve weather."

"You're so hardy! That is part of your strength."

"Um-m," muttered Blake. "That cousin of yours is a hummer, isn't she?"

"If you but knew how she envies me my Crusoe adventures!"

"I'm not surprised to hear it. What gets me is seeing her go to the same church as her mother."

"She doesn't usually. But how could she miss such a chance to tease aunty and Lord James? She's a dear contrary girl."

"Then she's not an Episcopalian?"

"Oh, yes. Isn't it nice that we all are?"

"We all?" queried Blake.

"If you've been confirmed, you are, too. That's why I'm so glad you're coming with me. We'll take the communion together."

Blake's face darkened, and he replied hesitatingly: "Why, you see, Jenny, I—I don't think I want to."

"But, Tom, when it will please me so much!"

"You know I'd like to please you—only, you see, I'm not—I don't believe in it."

"Do you positively disbelieve in it?"

"Well, I can't say just that."

"Then I'm sure it will be all right. You'll not be irreverent, and maybe it will reawaken your own true spiritual self."

"Sorry," said Blake uneasily. "I'm afraid I can't do it, even to please you."

"But why not? Surely, Tom, you'll not allow your hard cold science to stand in the way of a sacrament!"

"I don't know whether it is a sacrament or isn't."

"Is that your reason for refusing what I so greatly desire?"

He looked away from her, and asked in a tone that was meant to be casual, "Do they use regular wine, or the unfermented kind?"

"So that's your reason!" she exclaimed. "I did not think you'd be afraid."

"Anything that has alcohol in it—" he sought to explain. "It's the very devil to rouse that craving! There have been times when I've taken a drink and fought it down—but not when—No, I can't risk it, Jenny."

"Not the communion wine? Surely no harm could come from that! You need take only the slightest sip."

"One taste might prove to be as bad as a glassful. You can't guess what it's like. I'm apt to go wild. Just the smell is bad enough."

"But it's the communion, Tom. You have been confirmed in the Church. You know what the consecrated bread and wine symbolize. You can recall to mind all the sacred associations."

"I'm mighty sorry," replied Blake. "If only that meant to me what it does to you, I might risk it. I'm no blatant atheist or anti- religionist. I'm simply agnostic; I don't believe. That's all. You have faith. I haven't. I didn't wish to get rid of my faith. It just went."

"It may come to you again, if you seek to partake of the spiritual communion," urged Genevieve.

"I'm willing enough to try that. But I'll not risk any wine."

"You'll not?" she cried. "Afraid to taste the consecrated wine? Then you are weak!—you are a coward! And I thought you strong, despite your own confession!"

The outburst of reproach forced Blake to flinch. He muttered in protest, "Good Lord, Jenny! you don't mean to say you make this a part of the test?"

"Does it mean nothing to you that I long to have you share the communion with me?" she rejoined. "What must I think of you if you dare not venture to partake of that holy symbol, in the communion of all that is highest within you with the Father?"

Blake quivered as though the frosty air had at last sent a chill through his powerful frame.

"You insist?" he asked huskily.

"You are strong. You will do it," she replied.

"You don't know what it means. But, since you insist—" he reluctantly acquiesced. He added almost inaudibly, "Up against it for sure! Still —there have been times—"



CHAPTER XVIII

HOLY COMMUNION

They reached the chapel and entered during the last verse of the Processional Hymn. As Genevieve was known to the usher in charge of the centre aisle, they were shown to a pew farther forward than Blake would have chosen.

Genevieve produced a dainty hymnal and prayer-book, and gave her companion the pleasurable employment of helping her hold first one and then the other, throughout the service. If his spirit was quickened by a re-hearing of the prayers in which he had once believed, he did not show it. But he seemed pleased at the fact that Genevieve was too intent upon worship to gaze around at the hats and dresses of the other ladies.

The chapel choir could not boast of any exceptional voices. It was, however, very well trained. Throughout the anthem Blake sat tense, almost quivering, so keen was his delight. At the close he sank back into the corner of the pew, his gaze shifting uneasily from the infirm and aged bishop in the episcopal chair to the thin, eager-faced young vicar who had hastened around to mount up into the pulpit.

With a quick movement, the vicar opened the thick Bible to his text, the announcement of which caused Blake to start and fix his attention upon him:

"'He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.' Proverbs 16:32."

Genevieve glanced at Blake, who recalled how she had expressed her certainty that he would find the sermon helpful. The text was apt, to say the least. His hard-set face momentarily softened with a smile that caused her to settle back, in serene contentment. He assumed what Lord James would have termed his "poker face" and leaned up in the corner of the pew, to gaze at the preacher, as impassive as a wooden image.

The manner in which the Reverend Mr. Vincent elucidated his text soon won a stare of pleased surprise from Blake. He began by describing, no less vividly than briefly, the walled cities of the ancients and the enormous difficulty of capturing them, either by siege or assault. This was followed by a graphic summary of the life of Alexander the Great.

Blake listened with such intentness to this novel sermon that he did not perceive that Genevieve was no less intently studying him. It was evident he was deeply impressed by the obvious inference to be drawn from the life of the mighty young Macedonian,—the youth who conquered worlds, only to be himself conquered by his own vices.

But when, warming to his theme, the young vicar entered upon a eulogy of asceticism, Blake bent over and stared moodily at the printed "Suggestions to Worshippers" pasted on the back of the next pew. His big body, to all appearances, was absolutely still and rigid, but the fingers of his right hand moved about restlessly, tapping his knee or clenching upon the broad palm.

In the midst of Mr. Vincent's explanations of what he considered the fundamental differences between the self-torture of the Hindu yogis and the mortifications of spirit and body practised by the mediaeval monks, Blake shook his head in an uneasy, annoyed gesture. Yet if he meant this as an indication of dissent, he gave no other sign that he was following the thread of the sermon.

Even the close of the eloquent peroration, in which Mr. Vincent besought his hearers to prepare for the fasting and prayer of the Lenten season, failed to rouse Blake from his moody abstraction. But at the end of the regular service, when the white-gowned choir-boys flocked out and the majority of the congregation began to crowd into the aisles with decorous murmurings and the soft rustling of silken skirts, Blake raised his head and followed their departure with a shifting, disquieted gaze.

At last all others than those who had remained for the communion had passed out into the vestibule, and the closing of the doors muffled the loud clear voices of those on the outer steps. Genevieve touched Blake's arm. He started, and glanced up into the chancel. As he caught sight of the bishop and Mr. Vincent behind the rail, his uneasiness became so pronounced that Genevieve was alarmed.

"What is it? Are you ill?" she whispered.

"No," he replied. He thrust his shaking hands into his coat pockets, forced himself to take a deep breath, and added in a thick, half- inarticulate mutter, "no—won't give in—not a quitter."

She could not catch the words, but the resolute tone reassured her.

"It's the air in here. It's stifling. But we shall not be long now," she murmured, and she lapsed into devotional concentration.

Blake, however, followed the service with increasing restlessness. His fingers twitched within the sheltering pockets, and the lines of his face drew tense. He glanced about two or three times as though half inclined to bolt.

A little more, and he might have broken under the strain and run away. But then the communicants began to leave their pews and drift forward into the chancel. At the touch of Genevieve's hand upon his arm he started more sharply than before.

"Tom, you really are ill!" she insisted.

"No," he mumbled, "I guess I—Wait, though. I've forgotten. Does he mean we're supposed to take it as real flesh and blood?"

"Only the Romanists hold to that. We take it symbolically."

"Then why doesn't he say so?"

"He did. Besides, every one understands. You are coming?"

"Wine—alcohol—and she still insists!" he muttered in a thick, almost inarticulate voice.

Intent upon the sacrament, she failed to heed either his tone or the despair in his tense face.

"Come. We are the last," she urged. "We'll soon be out in the open air."

With a heaviness that she mistook for solemnity, he stepped out into the aisle for her to leave the pew, and walked beside her up into the chancel.

She knelt near the extreme end of the altar rail, and bent over with her face in the little hand that she had bared to receive the communion bread. For a moment Blake stood beside her, staring dubiously at the venerable figure of the bishop. Mr. Vincent passed between. Blake took a step to the left and knelt down beside Genevieve.

The only sounds in the chancel were the intoned murmurings of the bishop and Mr. Vincent and the labored breathing of an asthmatic woman next to Genevieve. The less indistinct of the murmuring voices drew near. Genevieve thrust out her palm a little way. Blake, without looking up, did the same.

Mr. Vincent reiterated his intoned statement above them, as though in invocation, and placed tiny squares of bread in their palms. They were the last in the line of kneeling communicants. Blake waited until Genevieve raised her hand to her mouth. Mechanically he followed her example. He swallowed the little morsel of bread with perceptible effort. Again he pressed his forehead down upon the hand that gripped the brass rail.

The bishop's voice now murmured near them, feeble and broken, yet very solemn: "'The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that Christ's Blood was shed for thee, and be thankful.'"

Both of Blake's hands now clutched the rail in a grip that whitened the knuckles. Persons from the other end and the centre of the line were rising and softly retiring to their pews. The asthmatic woman gasped and fell silent as the bishop held the communion cup to her lips.

The bishop shuffled quietly along another step and stood bowed over the last two communicants. He was a very old man and he was ill. His voice sank to an inaudible murmur: "'The Blood ... shed for thee, preserve ... life. Drink this ..."

Blake waited, tense and rigid, as one about to meet the shock of a deadly attack. The bishop drew the chalice back from Genevieve's lips in his trembling hands, and paused for Blake to reach out and take it.

Blake did not move. The bishop bent farther over. The fumes of the wine rose in the face of the kneeling man. He quivered and shrank back—then, almost violently, he flung up his head and caught the cup to his lips.

Genevieve was rising. Blake stood up abruptly and followed her down to their pew. She knelt at once; but he caught up his soft hat, and holding it before his face, bent down close to her ear. He spoke in a strained whisper: "Excuse me. I've got to go."

She half rose. "You're ill! I'll go with you and—"

"No. Sit still. I've a—a most important engagement with, a friend— Mr. Griffith. Got to hurry!"

"Not so loud!" she cautioned him. "If you must go, Tom!"

"Yes, must! Sorry, but—" His hand sought and closed upon hers in a sudden caressing clasp, and his voice became husky. "Good-bye, girlie! May not see you for a—for a time!"

"Why, are you going out of town?" she asked.

But he was already turning away. Without pausing to answer her question, he started rapidly down the aisle, his head and shoulders bent forward in a peculiar crouch. A slight frown of perplexity and displeasure marred the serenity of Genevieve's face. But the benign voice of the bishop immediately soothed her back into her beatific abstraction.

When the service was ended, she walked home in a most devotional frame of mind, and after luncheon, spent the afternoon searching out scriptural verses that she thought would aid in the spiritual re- awakening of Blake. Later in the afternoon she accompanied her father to the Gantrys', her face aglow with reverent joy. It was as if she felt that she had already guided Blake into the straight and narrow way that leads up out of the primitive.

They found Dolores industriously shocking her mother by a persistent heckling of Lord James, who was smiling at her quips and sallies and twirling his little blond mustache as if he enjoyed the raillery.

"Oh, here's Vievie, at last!" cried the girl. "Vievie darling, your eyes positively shine! Have you and the heroic Thomas been talking about the sharks and crocodiles of your late paradise? That was so cute of you, waiting this morning till we had gone, and then slipping off with him alone."

"We went to my little chapel. I knew the dear old bishop would be there. And the new vicar, Mr. Vincent, preached a splendid sermon."

"Which you talked about all the way home—I don't think," mocked Dolores.

"No, you never think," agreed Mrs. Gantry.

"Mr. Blake had to hasten away, just before the close of the communion service," explained Genevieve. "He remembered an important engagement with Mr. Griffith."

"About the Zariba Dam?" queried her father with alert eagerness.

"He did not say. I am not altogether sure that he—"

"Pardon me," interrupted Lord James. "Do you really believe that, in the circumstances, he would leave you for a business appointment?"

"Why shouldn't he?" said Mr. Leslie. "If he solves the problem of that dam, his fortune is as good as made. He'll have big positions thrust upon him. Did he seem excited, my dear—abstracted?"

"Oh, do you think it was that?" replied Genevieve. "I feared he was ill. The ventilation of the chapel is so wretched. He did look odd; yet he would not admit that he felt ill. I was half doubtful whether it was right to insist that he stay to communion."

"Communion!" gasped Mrs. Gantry. "You don't mean to say, my dear, that you've made a convert of him? Impossible!"

"I'm afraid not," sighed Genevieve. "I believe he took the communion merely to oblige me."

"Took the communion?" echoed Lord James, no less astonished than Mrs. Gantry. "Surely you do not—er—It seems quite impossible, you know."

"Is it so very amazing, when I asked him—urged him?" said Genevieve, flushing ever so slightly under his incredulous look.

"My word!" he murmured. "Tom did that!"

"I regret that he was not in a condition to receive the utmost good from it. But he was either ill or else rendered uneasy over his business with Mr. Griffith," remarked Genevieve.

"Of course, of course!" assented Lord James, bending over to brush a speck from his knee. "Quite a pity, indeed!" He straightened and turned to Mrs. Gantry, with a forced smile. "Er—it's deuced stupid of me—agreeing to dine, y'know—deuced stupid. Must beg pardon for cutting it! I'd quite forgotten I was to meet Tom—er—and Griffith, at their offices. They may be waiting for me now."

"Why, of all things!" protested Dolores. "You don't mean to say you are going to run off, just when dinner is ready?"

"Lord Avondale has made his excuses," said her mother. "No doubt another time—"

"Very soon, I trust—very soon," assented Lord James, with a propitiatory glance at Dolores. "It's a keen disappointment, I assure you." He looked about at Genevieve. "If you ladies will be so kind— It's a most pressing matter. Er—Griffith is not in the best of health. He may have to take a trip to Florida."

"No, he won't," broke in Mr. Leslie. "Not unless he leaves some one to manage Lafayette Ashton. The young cub isn't fit to be left alone with that bridge. Isn't that what this appointment is about? Griffith may have it in mind to put Blake in charge of the bridge."

"Er—must say it wouldn't surprise me if he takes a run up there with Griffith," said Lord James. "May go along myself."

"But you'll be back for the ball!" exclaimed Dolores.

"Right-o! Count on me for the ball. That's a fortnight off. Ample time."

"Then I promise you two waltzes. Bring back Laffie with you. He dances divinely."

Lord James smiled in rather an absent manner, and turned to Genevieve. "You take me? I expect to be away with Tom for a few days. He will probably lack opportunity to call on you before he leaves town. You may have a message for me to take to him."

"Give him my best wishes for the success—of his work."

"That is all?"

For a few moments Genevieve stood hesitating, too intent upon her own thoughts to heed the covert stare of Dolores and the open scrutiny of her aunt and father. Lord James waited, with his averted gaze fixed upon the anxious face of Mrs. Gantry.

"That is all," quietly answered the girl, at last.

Mrs. Gantry sighed with relief, but Dolores frowned, and Mr. Leslie stared in irritable perplexity. Lord James bowed and hastened out before any of the others had observed his expression.



CHAPTER XIX

THE FALL OF MAN

Griffith, C.E., sat in the inner room of the bare living apartments adjoining his office. His feet, clad in white socks and an ancient pair of carpet slippers, were perched upon the top of a clicking steam radiator. His lank body balanced itself perilously in a rickety cane- seated chair, which was tilted far back on the rear legs. His pipe, long since burnt out and cold, hung from his slack jaw, while his eyes, bright and excited, galloped through the last pages of a sensational society novel.

He reached the final climax of the series of climaxes, and sat for a moment tense; then, flirting the cheap thing into a corner, he drew down his feet and stood up, stretching and yawning. Having relieved his cramped muscles, he drew out a tobacco pouch. But while in the act of opening it, he glanced at the alarm-clock on the book-shelves, and ended by replacing the pouch, without loading his pipe.

"Nine," he croaked, and again he stretched and yawned.

A sharp knock sounded at the hall-door of the outer room. Before he could start in response, a second and far louder knock followed.

"H'm—must be a wire," he muttered, and he shuffled quickly over the faded carpet into the front room.

The door shook with a third knocking that sounded like fist blows. Griffith's eyes sharpened with the look of a man who has lived in rough places and scents danger. He turned the night-catch and stepped to one side as he flung the door open. Before him stood a tall young man in an English topcoat. The visitor's curly yellow hair was bare and his handsome face scarlet with embarrassment.

"I—er—I beg your pardon, Mr. Griffith. I—" he stammered.

A big hand swung up on his shoulder, and a deep voice, thick and jocular, cut short his apology. "Thash all ri', Cheems. Wash ri' in. Ish on'y ol' Grishsh. Wash ri' in, I shay."

Propelled by the hand on his shoulder, Lord James entered with a precipitancy that carried him half across the room. Blake followed with solemn deliberation, keeping a hand upon the door casing. Griffith stepped around and shut and bolted the door. Without a second glance at Blake, he shuffled close up to Lord James and demanded in a rasping, metallic voice, "What's the meaning of this, Mr. Scarbridge?"

"Thash all ri', Grish," interposed Blake, "thash all ri'. M'frensh Chimmy Ear' Albondash. Hish fa'er's Dush Rubby—y' shee?"

Without raising his voice, Griffith gave utterance to a volley of blasphemous expletives that crackled on the air like an electric discharge.

"If you will kindly permit me, sir—"

"Hell!" cut in the engineer. "You call yourself his friend. Good friend you are, to let him touch a drop!"

"This is no time for misunderstandings between his friends, Mr. Griffith," said Lord James, with a quiet insistence that checked the other's anger. "He was hard at it when, I found him—had been for hours."

"Ri' she are, Chi-Chimmy boy! Ching o' it, Grishsh!—thish ish a relish—relishush lushingsh—church shaloo—loon."

Griffith went over to the swaying figure, and stared close into the pallid face and glittering, bloodshot eyes.

"You damned fool!" he jerked out.

"Whash—whash 'at? Whash you shay, Grishsh?"

"You damned idiot!"

"Thash all ri'. Goo' frensh, Grishsh, youm me. Lesh hash a dro-drop."

"Come on in," said the engineer. "I'll give you several drops." He shot a glance at the Englishman. "Lend a hand, will you?"

Lord James stepped quickly to the other side of Blake, who clasped each about the neck in a maudlin but vice-like embrace. As they moved toward the bedroom, Griffith exclaimed with strategic enthusiasm: "That's it, boys, come right on in. It's so confounded dusty here, let's have a bath."

"All ri', Grishsh, en'ching you shay. Bu' you wanna wash ou' y' don' gi' wa'er insish. Wa'er insish a man'sh wor' ching—"

"That's all right, old man," cut in Lord James, "I'll see to that. Leave it to me."

By this time they had come in beside Blake's own cot, which extended out of the corner of the room, at the foot of Griffith's equally simple bed. Griffith opened the door of a tiny bathroom and turned on the hot water in the tub. Lord James fell to stripping Blake, regardless of his protests that he could undress himself.

"Chuck it!" ordered his lordship, as Blake sought to interfere. "You don't want to keep us waiting our turn, do you?"

Blake launched upon an elaborate and envolved disclaimer that he had harbored the remotest idea of causing his friends the slightest trouble. In the midst Griffith came out of the bathroom. With his help, Blake was soon got ready, and the two led him in between them. In the corner of the bathroom was a small cabinet shower-bath with a wooden door. Blake turned toward it, but Griffith drew him about to the steaming tub.

"Hot room first, Tommy," he said. "Haven't forgotten how to take a Turkish, have you?"

Blake entered upon another profuse apology, meantime docily permitting the others to immerse him in the tub of hot water. Griffith promptly added still hotter water to the bath, while Lord James held the vapor curtains tight about the patient's neck. Before many minutes Blake began to grow restless, then to curse. But between them, Griffith and Lord James managed to keep him in the tub for more than a quarter of an hour.

"All right, Tommy. Now for the shower," said Griffith, at last.

Blake came out of the tub red and still wobbly. They rushed him over and shoved him into the cabinet. Lord James stepped clear, and Griffith slammed shut the door, latched it with an outside hook, and jerked open the lever of the shower-faucet, which was outside the cabinet.

"Oof!" grunted Blake, as the cold deluge poured down upon his bare head and body.

"Fine, hey?" called Griffith.

"Wow! Lemme ou'! Oo-ou!"

The cabinet shook with a bump that would have upset it had it not been screwed fast to the wall.

"Aw, now, don't do the baby-act, Tommy!" jeered Griffith. "Yowling like a bum, over a bath!"

"Be game, old man!" chimed in Lord James. "Take your medicine."

"Bu-but 'sh cole! W-whew!"

"Stay with it, old man—stay with it!" urged Lord James. "Don't lay down. Be a sport!"

"G-gosh! 'M free-freezin'! Lemme out!"

Griffith rubbed his hands together and cackled: "Stay with it, Tommy. It's doing the work. Stay with it."

"Damnation!" swore Blake. "O-open that door!"

"Time we were moving, Mr. Scarbridge," said Griffith.

He followed Lord James out of the bathroom, and closed the door. He led the way through into the front room, and closed that door. They stood waiting, silent and expectant.

The walls shook with a muffled crash.

"Repairs, five dollars," said Griffith. "Better stand farther over this way."

The bathroom door slammed open violently. The two men glanced into each other's eyes.

"You've played football?" croaked the engineer.

Lord James nodded.

"Tackle him low—fouler the better," advised Griffith.

There was a pause ... One of the cots in the bedroom creaked complainingly.

"Huh," muttered Griffith. "Sulking, eh? Good thing for us." He gazed full into the Englishman's face, and offered his hand. "I hope you'll overlook what I said, Mr. Scarbridge—Lord Scarbridge. Under the circumstances—"

"Don't mention it, Mr. Griffith! It's—it's the most positive proof of your friendship for him—that you should have been so angered. Deuce take it, I'd give anything if this hadn't happened!"

"How did it happen?" asked Griffith. "Sit down—No; no chance of his coming out now."

Lord James slipped off his heavy topcoat, and seated himself, his dress clothes and immaculate linen offering an odd contrast to the shabby room. But the engineer looked only at the face of his visitor.

"It's a beastly shame—when he was holding his own so well!" exclaimed the Englishman.

"That's what gets me," said Griffith. "He seemed to have staved it off indefinitely. I didn't notice a single one of the usual signs. And he has let out that the dam was almost a certainty. If he had fizzled on it, I could understand how that and the way he's been grinding indoors night and day—"

"No; he's stood that better than I had feared. What a shame! what a beastly shame! When Miss Leslie learns—"

"Miss Leslie?" cut in Griffith. "If she shakes him for this, she's not much account—after all he did for her. If she's worth anything, now's the time for her to set to and help pull him up again. But you haven't said yet how it happened."

"That's the worst of it! To be sure, she was perfectly innocent. She must have thought it simply impossible that the communion wine—"

"Hey!—communion wine? That's what he meant by church saloons and religious lushing, then. She steered him up against that—knowing his one weakness?"

"My dear sir, how could she realize?"

"He told me she knew."

"But the communion wine!"

"Communion alcohol! Alcohol is alcohol, I don't care whether it's in a saloon or a church or pickling snakes in a museum. I tell you, Tommy's case has made a prohibition crank of me. Talk about it's being a man's lack of will and moral strength—bah! I never knew a man who had more will power than he, or who was more on the square. You know it."

"I—to be sure—except, you know, when he gives way to these attacks."

"Gives way!—and you've seen him fight! It's a disease, I tell you—a monomania like any other monomania. Why don't they say to a crazy man in his lucid intervals, 'Trouble with you is your lack of will power and moral strength. Brace up. Go to church'?"

"But you'd surely not say that Tom's insane? He himself lays it to his own weakness."

"What else is insanity but a kind of weakness—a broken cog in the machine which slips and throws everything out of gear, no matter how big the dynamo? I tell you, a dipsomaniac is no more to be blamed for lack of will power or moral strength than is a kleptomaniac, or than an epileptic is to be blamed for having fits. It's a disease. I'm giving it to you straight what the doctors say."

All the hopefulness went out of the Englishman's boyish face.

"Gad!" he murmured. "Gad! Then he can't overcome it."

"I don't know. The doctors don't seem to know. They say that a few seem to outgrow it—they don't know how, though. But all agree that the thing to do is to keep the patient braced—keep him boosted up."

"Count on me for that!" exclaimed Lord James.

"It's where this girl—Miss Leslie—ought to come in, if she's worth anything," thrust Griffith.

"But—but, my dear sir, you quite fail to understand. It will never do to so much as hint to her that he has failed."

"Failed!" retorted Griffith. "When she herself forced him to take the first drink—Don't cut in! If you know Tommy as well as you ought, you know he would never have taken that drink in the condition he was in— not a single drop of anything containing alcohol! No! the girl forced him—she must have. He's dead in love with her. He'd butt his head against a stone wall, if she told him to. Hell!—just when he had his chance at last!"

"His chance?"

"I've been figuring it as a chance. Supposing he had pulled off this big Zariba Dam, he'd have felt that he had made good. It might have brought around that change the doctors tell about. Don't you see? It might have fixed that broken cog—straightened him up somehow for good. But now—hell!"

Griffith bent over, with a groan.

"Gad!" murmured Lord James. After a long pause, he added slowly, "But, I assure you, regarding Miss Leslie, it will never do to tell her. If she hears of this, he will have no chance—none! That occurred to me immediately I inferred the deplorable truth. I told her we were thinking of going with you to the bridge—Michamac."

"You did? Say, I thought Britishers were slow, but you got your finger on the right button first shove. It's the very thing for him—change, open air, the bridge—Wait a minute, though! With the chances more than even that it's Tommy's own—Until he makes good on the dam, nobody would take his word against that lallapaloozer's."

"I—er—beg pardon. I fail to take you," said Lord James.

"Just the question of his finding out something that's apt to make him manhandle young Ashton."

"Ah—all the better, I say. Anything to divert his mind."

Griffith looked at the Englishman with an approving smile. "You sure are the goods, Mr. Scarbridge! It'll take two or three days for him to fight down the craving, even with all the help we can give him. Wait a minute till I phone to a drug-store."

He shuffled out through a side doorway that led into his private office. While he was telephoning, Lord James heard low moans from the bedroom. He clenched his hands, but he did not go in to his friend until Griffith returned and crossed to the inner door.

"Come in, Mr. Scarbridge," he said. "Next thing is to see if we can talk him into going to Michamac."



CHAPTER XX

DE PROFUNDIS

He opened the door and, seemingly heedless of all else, hastened through to the bathroom, to shut off the flow of the shower. Lord James followed him as far as the corner cot, where Blake, wet-haired and half dressed, sat bowed far over, his elbows on his knees and his face between his hands.

"Head ache, old man?"

Blake raised his head barely enough for his friend to catch a glimpse of his haggard face and miserable eyes.

"Come now, Tommy," snapped Griffith, shuffling back from the bathroom, "we all admit you've made a damned fool of yourself; but what's the use of grouching? Sit up now—look pleasant!" He swung around a chair for Lord James, and seated himself in an old rocker. "Come, sit up, Tommy. We're going to hold an inquest on the remains."

"They need it—that's no lie," mumbled Blake.

"Bah! Cherk up, you rooster! It isn't the first time you've lost your feet. Maybe your feelings are jolted, but—the instrument is safe. Remember that time you fell down the fifty-foot bank and never even knocked your transit out of adjustment? You never let go of your grip on it! Come; you'll soon be streaking out again, same as ever."

"No, you're clean off this time, Grif." Instead of raising his head, Blake hunched over still lower. He went on in a dreary monotone, "No, I'm done for this trip—down for the count. I'm all in."

"Rot!" protested Lord James.

"All in, for keeps, this time. I'm not too big a fool to see that. Everything coming my way,—and to go and chuck it all like this. Needn't tell me she'll overlook it. Wouldn't ask her to. I'm not worth it."

"She's got to!" cried Griffith, with sudden heat. "She steered you up against this."

"What if she did? Only makes it all the worse. Didn't have sand enough to refuse. I'm no good, that's all—not fit to look at her—she's a lady. You needn't cut in with any hot air. I'm no more 'n a blackguard that got my chance to impose on her—and took it. That's the only name for it—young girl all alone!"

"No, no, old man, just the contrary, believe me!" exclaimed Lord James. "I doubt if I myself could have done what you did when she—er—"

"'Cause there'd have been no need. You're in her class, while I—" He groaned, and burst out morosely: "You know I'm not, both of you. What's the use of lying?"

The two friends glanced across at each other and were silent. Blake went on again, in his hopeless, dreary monotone. "Down and out—down and out. Only son of his mother, and she a drunkard. Nothing like Scripture, Jimmy, for consoling texts."

He began to quote, with an added bitterness in his despair: "'Woe unto them that are mighty to drink, and men of strength to mingle strong drink ... their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust—' 'Awake, ye drunkards, and weep and howl, all ye drinkers of wine.' 'For while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.'—Dry? Good Lord! Ring up a can of suds, Grif. I've got ten miles of alkali desert down my throat!"

"All right, Tommy," said Griffith. "We'll soon fix that. I've sent in an order already."

"You have not!" rejoined Blake, in an incredulous growl. "Well, suppose you ring 'em up again. If that can doesn't get here mighty sudden, I'll save the fellow the trouble of bringing it."

"Hold on, young man," ordered Griffith, as Blake started to heave himself to his feet. "I'm running this soiree."

He stood up and shuffled out into the front room. Blake shifted around restlessly, and was again about to rise, when there came a sharp rapping at the outer door.

"That's the man now," said Lord James. "Hold tight. It will now be only a moment."

Blake restrained himself. But it was a very long moment before Griffith came in with a pitcher and three glasses upon a battered tray. At the tinkle of the glasses Blake looked up, his face aflame. He made a clutch at the pitcher.



Griffith gave him his shoulder, and cackled: "Don't play the hog, Tommy. I've been up in Canada enough to know that the nobility always get first helping. Eh, Lord Scarbridge?"

"You—you—" gasped Blake.

"But this time," went on Griffith, hastily pouring out a brimming glassful of liquid from the pitcher, "we'll make an exception."

He turned about quickly, and with his hand clasped over the top of the glass, reached it out to Blake. Half maddened by his thirst, the latter clutched the glass, and, without pausing to look at its contents, drained it at a gulp. An instant later the glass shattered to fragments on the floor, and Blake's fist flung out toward Griffith.

"Quassia!" he growled. "You dotty old idiot! Needn't think you're going to head me off this soon!"

Griffith set the tray on his bed, and crossing to the door, locked it and put the key in his pocket.

"Now, Tommy," he croaked, "you've got just two friends that I know of. They're here. Maybe you can take the key from us; but you know what you'll have to do to us first."

Blake stared at him with morose, bloodshot eyes.

"You're dotty!" he growled. "You know you can't stop me, once I'm under way. I don't want to roughhouse it, but I want something for this thirst, and I'm going to have it. Understand?" "H'm. If that's all," said Griffith.

"That's all, if you're reasonable," replied Blake less morosely. "They gave me all I wanted when I took the gold cure."

"Cured you, too," jeered Griffith.

"That's all right. The point now is, do I get something? If I do, I agree to stay here. If I don't, I'm going out."

"Try another glass of this while you're waiting," suggested Lord James, and he poured out a second glassful of the bitter decoction.

"No," answered Blake.

"You tossed down the other too fast. Sip it. You'll find that it will ease the dryness while you are waiting," insisted Lord James." Try it, to oblige me."

"Ugh!" growled Blake. He hesitated, then reluctantly took the glass and began to sip the quassia. After the last swallow, he turned sullenly to Griffith. "Well, what you waiting for? Get a move on you."

"It does help, doesn't it?" interposed Lord James.

Blake muttered something behind his lips that the others chose to take for assent.

"Yes, it's the real thing," said Griffith. "Try another, Tommy, same way."

"Another? Bah! You can't fool me. I'm on to your game."

"Sure you are," assented Griffith. "What's more, you're sober enough now to know that our game is your game. Own up. Don't lie."

Blake looked down morosely, and for a long quarter of a minute his friends waited in anxious suspense. At last, without looking up, he held out his empty glass for Lord James to refill it. The second battle was won.

As Lord James took the glass, Griffith interposed. "Hold on. We'll keep that for later. I've something else now."

"More dope!" growled Blake.

"No, good stuff to offset the effects of the poison you've been swilling since morning. Next course is bromide of potassium."

"Take your medicine, bo!" chimed in Lord James.

"Ugh!" groaned Blake. "Dish it out, then. Only don't forget. You know, well as I do, that if the craving comes on that bad again, I'm bound to have a drink. I tell you, I can't help myself. I've told you about it time and again. It's hell till I get enough aboard to make me forget. You know I don't like the stuff. I've hated the very smell of it since before my first real spree."

Griffith shot a significant glance at Lord James. "That's all right, Tommy,—we understand how it is. But we've got hold of it this time. You'll never quit if you can help it, and we know now you can help it, with this quassia to keep your throat from sizzling. Here's your bromide."

Blake gulped down the dose, but muttered despondently: "What's the use? You know you can't head me off for keeps, once I'm as far under way as I've got to-day. Think you're going to stop me now, do you?"

"That's what," rejoined Griffith. "You'll think the same in about ten minutes. I'm going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle."

"And I've got to sit here while you unwind your jaw! Cut it short. Don't see why you want to chin, anyway. All that's left is to haul me to the scrapheap. . . . You don't think I'd go near her after this, do you? I've got a little decency left. Only thing I can do is to open wide and cut loose. D.T. finish is the one for me. Won't take long for her to forget me. Any fool can see that."

"We're going up to Michamac, first thing tomorrow," remarked Griffith in a casual tone.

"You may be. I'm not."

"It's all arranged, Tammas," drawled Lord James. "I told Miss Leslie— "

"You told her! Mighty friendly of you! Good thing, though. Sooner she knows just what I am, the better. How soon do you figure on the wedding?"

"Chuck it, you duffer!" exclaimed the Englishman, flushing scarlet. "I didn't tell her this. She doesn't know."

Blake's haggard face lighted with a flash of hope, only to settle back into black despair.

"She'll learn soon enough. I'm done for, for good, this trip!" he groaned. He clenched his fist and bent forward to glare at them in sullen fury. "Damn you! Call yourselves my friends, and sit here yawping, you damned Job's comforters! Think I'm a mummy?—when I've lost her! God!—to sit here with my brains going—to know I've lost all—all! Give me some whiskey—anything! ... My girl—my girl!"

He bent over, writhing and panting, in an agony of remorse.

Griffith fetched a tablet and a glass of water, to which he added some of the quassia.

"Here's your dose of sulphonal," he said, in his driest, most matter- of-fact tone." You've got to get to sleep. It's an early train."

"What's the use? Leave me alone!" groaned Blake.

"Gad, old man," put in Lord James. "Any one who didn't know you would think you were a quitter."

"What's the use? I've lost out. I'm smashed."

"All right. Let's call it a smashup," croaked Griffith." Just the same, you don't go out of commission till you've squared accounts. You're not going to leave the Zariba Dam in the air."

"Guess I've got enough on paper for you to work out the solution, if it's workable."

"And if not?"

"I'm all in, I tell you. I'm smashed for good."

"No, you're not. Anyway, there's one thing you've got to do. You've got to settle about that bridge. You've been too busy over the dam to think of asking for a look at Ashton's plans, and I've said nothing. I've been waiting for you to make good on the dam. With that behind you, no engineer in the U.S. would doubt your word if you claimed the bridge."

"What of that? What do I care?" muttered Blake. "The game's up. What's the use?"

"This!" snapped Griffith." Either Laffie Ashton is a dirty sneak thief, or he's a man that deserves my apologies. It's a question of fair play to me as well as to him. You're square, Tom. You'll come up to Michamac with me and settle this matter."

"Lord! Why can't you let me alone?" groaned Blake. But he took the sulphonal and washed it down with the quassia-flavored water.

Lord James went out into the office to phone his man at the hotel to fetch over clothes for a short trip. When he reentered the bedroom Blake was stretched out in bed, and Griffith was spreading a blanket for himself on the floor.

"Should I not run over to my hotel for the night?" remarked the Englishman. "Don't want to put you out of your bed, y' know."

"No. I sleep as well, or better, on the floor. We want to be sure of an early start," said Griffith.

Blake rose on his elbow and blinked at them. His eyes were still bloodshot and his face haggard, but the change in his voice was unmistakably for the better. "Say, bos, it does pay to have friends— sometimes!"

"Forget it!" rejoined Griffith. "You go to snoozing. It's an early train, remember."

Blake sighed drowsily, and stretched out again on the flat of his back. Within a minute he was fast asleep.